Sharon Drew Morgen – Page 4 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

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:

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.
Set the parameters: Decide on rules: how the meeting will be led, who is responsible for what, frequency of meetings, etc. Consider rotating leadership.
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.
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.
Research: Prior to the next meeting, do research on different types of relational approaches to discuss.
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.
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

While researching my book What? I discovered that we may not accurately understand what others are saying to us: due to the way ears ‘hear’ (not very well) we only accurately understand some unknowable percentage of what’s been said.

Turns out our listening is pretty subjective. And since listening is such a crucial element in communication and there’s a possibility we misunderstand what’s been said, any assumptions we make must be subject to self-doubt.

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While we don’t have choice over how our brain (mis)translates incoming words, we can have more personal choice with more awareness of our brain’s process. Did you know:

We only retain words we hear for approximately 3 seconds, and since spoken words have no spaces between them, our brains must also listen for breaks in breath, tone, and rhythm to differentiate words and meaning.
Our brain interprets incoming words through already-existing circuits. That means if what was said is ‘similar enough’ to something we’ve heard before, our brain translates it according to the original, most likely misinterpreting the new content.

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

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

V: Hi Sharon.

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

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

SDM: Neither do I.

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

Because my double first name was foreign to her, her brain used a habituated pathway and misinterpreted my name as Joe introduced us and my correction.

This type of thing happens daily. We believe what our brain tells us, make follow-on assumptions then act on them, and never doubt ourselves. Unfortunately, we often assume we’re ‘right’ and end up being wrong.

ASSUMPTIONS RESTRICT AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION

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

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

With so many deletions and distortions in the process, we end up making assumptions based on what we think we heard, and assume we’re ‘right’ regardless of the truth. When I asked a magazine editor to correct the name Charlotte Morgan that appeared under my photo he replied (and I can’t make this stuff up!): “I didn’t get it wrong. You must have sent it to me wrong.” True story.

THE COST OF ASSUMING

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

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

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

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen February 10th, 2025

Posted In: Listening

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?

__________________________________________

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

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.

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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?.

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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

_____________________________

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

I realized long ago that the low close numbers in sales were not caused by buyers, sellers, or solutions, but by the sales process itself. With a focus on placing solutions, it enters at the last phase of a buying decision ensuring only those who were going to buy anyway will close.

Without a specific focus on facilitating the private, idiosyncratic, systemic, and confusing change/risk management issues they must resolve before they self-identify as buyers, those folks who are in the process of becoming buyers (and don’t respond to your outreach) get overlooked needlessly. You can easily find and close them by adding starting with change management thinking. Let me explain.

I’ve been in sales one way or another for 45 years, as a seller, coach, inventor, author of 7 sales books (including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity), trainer and entrepreneur. I continue to be dumbfounded as to why our approach to placing solutions remains one dimensional. Our low close rates should tell us that selling doesn’t cause buying?

WHY DOES SALES OVERLOOK CHANGE MANAGEMENT?

The last – the last – thing people need is information about solutions. They can’t even fully define what they need until they understand the risk to their environment if ‘change’ is introduced.

As a seller turned entrepreneur, when I realized that sales enters with a solution too early, I developed a pre-sales/buying enablement model – Buying Facilitation® – that uses a wholly different goal and toolkit: to first facilitate the change, risk, and buy-in issues folks must manage (and sales overlooks) before they’re ready to buy.

Working together with sales, it’s possible to

organize the Pre-Sales decision/change management process by helping prospects traverse the 13 steps of decision making/change.
facilitate the buying process, close 8x more and ¼ faster;
differentiate yourself from your competitors by first helping folks manage their internal issues;
use a new qualifying focus on first calls to find high probability buyers.

Sample

Note: Dirty Little Secrets lays out the specific behind-the-scenes steps in Pre-Sales and includes an introduction to Buying Facilitation® to help sellers facilitate buying.

I’ve trained many global companies (IBM, KPMG, DuPont, GE, Proctor and Gamble, Kaiser, Morgan Stanley, etc.) with an average 40% close rate from first call. But even folks in the same company (who watch colleagues I’ve trained close 8x more than they’re closing) won’t use it as ‘It’s not sales!’ (No. It’s not.) Leaders familiar with Buying Facilitation® say they’ve got too much invested in maintaining the status quo, and the known 95% failure of sales is built into the system (hiring more sellers, longer close time, lost sales).

SALES IS MISSING A CHANGE MANAGEMENT FRONT END

The sales industry is somewhat aware of the issues that must be resolved on the buy-side, (risk management, change management, buy-in) yet continue basing their sales strategies and solution-placement tools and techniques that don’t facilitate the change management issues folks must first address and prospects really need help with.

Sad but true: in the 40 years I’ve been training sellers, I’ve never met one – not one! – who understands their buyer’s behind-the-scenes decision process, or that they cannot, will not, buy until they’ve resolved their risk of change. Indeed, sellers believe that

their questions will gather the full set of elements involved in a problem so they can pitch.
their pitch, or content, will be perceived as the fix for the problem, which most likely hasn’t yet been properly defined.
their content is offered at the right time, in the right way, to the right group of people, who need their solution NOW and be agreed to by all.
risk, change, buy-in, can be accomplished with a great solution, solution, or worse, isn’t considered at all.

None of those are true, of course. 80% of a prospect’s decision process has nothing to do with buying anything. In fact, until they’ve gotten buy-in and understand (and agree to) the risk of bringing in something new, they will ignore our efforts: if the risk of change is higher than the risk of staying the same, the status quo prevails regardless of the need or efficacy of the solution.

But with an additional toolkit that helps these folks (they’re not even prospects yet) discover and manage their change and risk issues (prospects must do this with or without us!), sellers can quickly find high probability prospects on the first call and facilitate them through to agreement once the risk is managed. Why not adopt a dedicated tool to first facilitate the Pre-Sales decision process before trying to place solutions?

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

Since Dale Carnegie developed the standard sales model (and regardless of all the new bells and whistles) sales continues to be based on the same premises: seek folks with need, gather information, pitch, follow up and sell. Even new sellers are first taught the features, functions, and benefits of a product when entering a company.

Yet product data is actually the last – the very last – thing people need in order to make a buying decision.

With a change management viewpoint it’s possible that sellers can be seen as true consultants and differentiate from competitors pushing solutions. Not to mention quickly lead folks through their confounding change and buy-in issues – the ones we wait for them to complete! – to enable them to become buyers.

Here is a simplified version what goes on behind-the-scenes:

A problem is noticed, gets discussed among many, and eventually (not until everyone involved is assembled to have their say) the problem gets defined.
Workarounds are tried.
The risk of bringing something new into the status quo is researched and discussed. When it’s accepted as manageable, the ‘need’ is reconsidered to account for the risk.
If the risk of change is not lower than maintaining the status quo, no change will be made.
If the risk of change is lower than maintaining the status quo, they agree to consider themselves ‘buyers’ and begin seeking an external solution.
They ‘go external’ for a solution (i.e. buy something).
Sales enters, to understand needs and possible solution fit.

It’s possible to find and facilitate would-be prospects through the internal and cultural activities they must undertake on route to becoming buyers and THEN sell. I’m not suggesting you remove the sales model, just use it precisely when then-prospects are ready for it.

So here’s my pitch. Let me train you, your team, your company to begin your sales opportunities by adding Buying Facilitation® to your sales method and:

Recognize a true prospect on the first call and facilitate them down their steps of change management so they quickly self-identify as buyers. You will then only connect with folks who have a high probability of buying, and stop wasting time on folks who will never close;
Pose unbiased questions (Facilitative Questions™) that will lead them through to buy-in and decision making quickly
Need is not the indicator of a prospect. Obviously;
Garner respect and loyalty. You’ll be serving them and truly making a difference to their decision making;
Collapse the sales cycle by 75% and close a helluva lot more;
Be a true servant leader;
Differentiate from your competitors still pushing solutions;

My Buying Facilitation® training is a new form of training I’ve invented that immerses students in new skills and thinking. It not only will generate more sales, but provides life-long skills in listening without bias, formulating unbiased questions, and following a 13 step decision making process they can use within the team and within their lives.

Should you be at a point where you’re ready to differentiate yourself from your competitors, close more, faster, I would love to speak and use Buying Facilitation® on you to help you ascertain your risk of change and your team’s tolerance to adding new skills. I look forward to speaking. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_______________

Sharon Drew Morgen January 20th, 2025

Posted In: Sales

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

Posted In: News

Have you ever wondered why folks who get trained don’t retain the new knowledge? According to Harvard studies, there’s a 90% failure-to-retain in instructor-led classrooms. Surely students want to learn, trainers are dedicated professionals, and the content is important. But the problem goes beyond the students, the motivation, the trainer, or the material being trained.

I suggest it’s a brain change issue: current training models, while certainly dedicated to imparting knowledge in creative, constructive, and tested ways, may not develop the necessary neural circuitry for Learners to fully comprehend, retain, or retrieve the new information. You see, learners may not naturally have the proper pathways to understand or retain the new knowledge.

The primary problem is how brains ‘hear’. Due to the nature of how brains handle incoming words (puffs of air that face distortions and deletions before being translated by neural circuits to meaning), an instructor’s content may be mistranslated, misunderstood, or misappropriated. Certainly there is no way to retain it as intended unless the learner has precise circuitry that matches the instructor’s content.

Trainers assume their content will be heard accurately. But it’s not, due to the automatic, habituated, physiological, neurological, electrochemical, biological set up of how brains listen. But it can be mitigated by helping students generate new circuits specifically for the new knowledge.

For those interested in learning how brains ‘listen’, my book WHAT? explains it all (with lots of funny stories and learning exercises) and offers workarounds.

Sample

As an original thinker who’s been inventing systemic brain change models for decades, I’ve developed a Learning Facilitation™ model that first trains the brain before presenting the core content.

When training begins by first generating new neural circuits, students can accurately translate, understand and retain the new knowledge and avoid any misunderstanding or failure-to-retain.

I presented my Learning Facilitation™ model at the Learning Ideas Conference in June 2024. Here is a link to the full one-hour presentation. Enjoy.

If you have questions, please get in touch: 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 December 23rd, 2024

Posted In: Communication, News

I moved to London in 1983 to start up a tech company after spending years as a successful sales person. For years I had qualified prospects, created decks and wrote great content, chased appointments and networked, presented, and followed up. As I became an entrepreneur, I thought I understood buyers well-enough to become one. But I was wrong.

SELLING VS BUYING

My new role taught me the differences between selling and buying. I hadn’t realized the complexity of the Pre-Sales activity necessary to become a buyer. Indeed, there were two buying processes: the buyer’s side and the seller’s side.

As a sales professional my ultimate job was to place solutions; as a buyer, my main focus was to avoid risks while creating and maintaining Excellence.

As a sales professional my job was to get folks to make a purchase. As such, I struggled to say/offer the right thing, at the right time, to the right prospects, in order to convince, persuade, and build relationships to close; as an entrepreneur and potential buyer I had to continually manage any necessary change we needed using the most efficient, integrous, and least disruptive route to success to maintain happy employees and clients, and continue to develop a great product.

As a sales professional, I sought to find and influence people who ‘needed’ my solution; as a buyer, I couldn’t fully define my needs, or resolve problems until all voices (stakeholders) and impediments to change were factored in and until we were absolutely sure we couldn’t resolve our problems internally. We certainly couldn’t make any changes until we fully understood the risks that any change would generate.

Selling and buying, I quickly realized, are two different activities: different goals, different behaviors, different communication and thinking patterns, different types of responsibility.

Before becoming a buyer myself, I hadn’t fully appreciated how severely the sales model limits who will buy by seeking only those with ‘need’ – the low hanging fruit, those who had completed their internal change management determinations and bought-in to any risks, any disruption, a new solution would bring to their environment.

The act of making a purchase, I realized, was a risk/change management problem before it was a solution choice issue. Any needs I had were secondary to maintaining consistency and team agreements. After all, we were doing ‘just fine’ without bringing in anything new.

As an entrepreneur with many factors to juggle, I realized that no one started off as a buyer but had to go through a change management process first. And because the sales model focuses on selling, it could only seek and close those folks who considered themselves buyers already (the low hanging fruit), overlooking those who could become buyers with some risk/change facilitation.

My book Dirty Little Secrets lays out all the steps people must take before self-identifying as a ‘buyer.’

Sample

THE JOB OF A BUYER

As a buyer, the very last thing I needed was to buy. Literally. But when I did buy, it was based on the team’s ability to understand my risk and manage change without disruption.

Indeed: the ‘cost’ of a fix had to be lower than the ‘cost’ of maintaining the status quo, regardless of my need or the efficacy of a solution. So (hypothetically) if I needed a CRM system but had to fire 8 people to buy one, I had to weigh the ‘cost’, the risk, of the change. And the time it takes to make this calculation is the length of the sales cycle. Unfortunately, the sales model does not offer tools to address this as it’s unique to the buying environment.

As a seller, I had never realized that my sales biases – biased questions (to ‘uncover needs’ of course), or listening specifically for where my solution could be pitched – were restricting my success. The sales model never considered what occurred before folks even self-identified as buyers.

By limiting my search to folks with ‘needs,’ I had overlooked an 8x larger audience of folks in the process of becoming buyers but not yet ready. Not to mention that my definition of ‘needs’ was often biased by my own needs to sell, and didn’t necessarily mean the person was a buyer.

As a buyer, I had more to worry about than solving a problem. I had to take into account

the need for buy-in by all who involved in the ultimate solution,
the risk a change would bring,
the rules and brand of the company,
the well-being of the employees and staff,
how the problem got created to make sure it didn’t recur,
the integrity of the product or service provided,
the congruence and integrity of the status quo,
the needs of the customers.

As a buyer, my challenge was to be better without losing what worked successfully, to ensure

– everyone involved agreed to a common solution,

– there was consensus and a route through to congruent change,

– we were all absolutely certain we couldn’t fix the problem with something familiar,

– the risk of change was less than the cost of maintaining the problem.

As the Managing Director/Founder, I had a well-oiled machine to consider – great staff, great clients, fantastic ROI – one that had a few problems, but did a lot successfully; I didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

WHAT I NEEDED TO KNOW BEFORE BECOMING A BUYER

Here’s what I needed to know before I began looking ‘outside’ for answers:

– Who did I need to get agreement from? And how would their combined voices inform our needs or a resolution?

– What would the ‘cost’ be to us, the downside, of bringing in something external? Was the downside worth the upside and could we recover?

– How could we fix the problem ourselves? At what point would we realize we couldn’t and needed outside help?

– How could we be certain upfront that the people, policies, rules, and goals we had in place would fit comfortably with anything new we might do, any solution we might purchase? And was it possible to know the downside in advance?

– How could I determine the risk of change before I brought in a new solution?

I had to make decisions that didn’t cause too much disruption and garnered buy-in.

I began annotating the change process I was going through. Eventually I realized everyone goes through the same change management process.

13 STEPS OF CHANGE

As someone trying to solve problems without causing disruption, my decision making process had very specific activities, from understanding the elements of a problem to ultimately ending up with a resolution. Turned out there were 13 steps for change, and people didn’t self-identify as buyers until step 10!

I used these steps to design a Change Facilitation model (Buying Facilitation®) as a new sales tool kit to lead potential buyers through their risk issues. Indeed, with a Buying Facilitator hat on, I could identify folks who were on route to becoming buyers on the first call.

As a seller I never realized that unless people tried to resolve their own problems and had buy-in for change, until they understood and bought into any risks involved with a new purchase, they’re not in the market to buy anything. In fact, with all my awards for being a top producer, I never realized selling didn’t cause buying!

I taught Buying Facilitation® to my sales staff so they could help people on route to becoming buyers to

Assemble all the right people – decision makers and influencers of all types – to get consensus for any change at all. It was quite a challenge to figure out every one of the folks whose voices had to be heard.;
Enable collaboration so all voices, all concerns, approved action by a consensus. This was a systems-change issue, not a solution-choice issue;
Find out if there was a cheap, easy, risk-free way to fix problems with groups, policies, technology we had on hand or were familiar with;
Discover the risks of change and how we’d handle them;
Realize the point where there was no route to Excellence without bringing in a new/different solution;
Manage the fallout of change when bringing something new in from outside, and determine how to congruently integrate a purchase into our status quo.

For those who want to understand the process, my book Dirty Little Secrets lays out the 13 step Buying Decision Path or go to my site www.sharon-drew.com where I not only explain it but have hundreds of articles on the subject.

A WALK THROUGH THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

Take a look at this summary of my journey from a person with a problem to a buyer.

Like all people, I didn’t know what I didn’t know: I didn’t know who needed to be involved (It wasn’t obvious due to the hidden influence from some of the folks peripherally involved.); I couldn’t know if we could fix the problem ourselves; I didn’t know how disruptive a purchase would be and certainly couldn’t even consider bringing anything new in until there were no other options; I didn’t know what the ‘cost’ would be to bring in something from outside, and if the ‘cost’ was lower or higher than keeping the problem.

In other words, even though we had needs, buying anything was not the objective nor the first thought (and although I did research, I never paid heed to marketing or sales content). We needed to understand the complete fact pattern; we all had to agree to the goals, direction, outcomes, results, risks, and path to change – confusing because every voice and job title had different priorities, needs, and problems.

It was a delicate process, and there was no clear path forward until we were almost at the end.

Every buyer goes through some form of this. The sales model overlooks this, not realizing that by entering at the end of the Buying Decision Path, sales restricts who buys to those who are ready, the low hanging fruit.

This is where buyers go when they’re silent. They’re not dragging their heels or seeking lower prices; they need to traverse their Steps of Change to get to the point of even becoming a buyer.

As an entrepreneur there was no one to guide me through this. I sure could have used the help of an unbiased sales professional who knew far more than I did about the environment.

Once I figured this all out and developed Buying Facilitation®, we had an eight-fold increase in sales and no longer wasted time following up those who would never buy as it was very obvious.

The time it takes buyers to navigate these steps is the length of the sales cycle. And buyers must do this anyway – so it might as well be with us.

BUYING FACILITATION® FACILITATES THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

Buying Facilitation® eschews trying to sell anything until or unless the buyer knows exactly how – not what – they need to buy. After all, you’ve got nothing to sell until they have something to buy.

Here’s what we don’t know as sellers:

Where buyers are along their decision path.
How many, or if, the requisite Buying Decision Team is in place, and ALL appropriate voices have been heard so a full evaluation of the upsides and downsides to change can be considered.
Until ALL voices have been heard, there is no way to recognize or define ‘need.’ As outsiders we can NEVER know who belongs on the Buying Decision Team because it’s so unique to the situation.
Who is a real buyer: only those who know how to manage change, and get consensus that they cannot fix the problem internally are buyers. Need doesn’t determine ability to buy.
The fallout of the risk factors, and the ability for any group to withstand change.
The types of change management issues that a new solution would entail.

The sales model does a great job placing solutions, but expends too much energy seeking those few who have completed their Buyer’s Journey and consider themselves buyers. Sales believes a prospect is someone who SHOULD buy; Buying Facilitation® believes a prospect is someone who CAN/WILL buy efficiently facilitates the Buyer’s Journey from the first moment of the first call, and THEN sells, to those who are indeed buyers.

For less time and resource, we can actually lead buyers down their own change route; and we can easily, quickly, recognize who will, or won’t, be a buyer. In one conversation we can help them discern who they need to include on their Buying Decision Team; if we wish an appointment, the entire Decision Team will be eagerly awaiting us.

And with a Change Facilitator hat on, on the first call it’s possible to find buyers at early stages along their decision path who need our solutions but aren’t yet ready to buy. We just can’t use the sales model until after it’s established who is actually a buyer.

Let’s enter earlier with a change consultant hat on, to actually facilitate buyers to the point where they could be ready to buy – and THEN sell. We will find 8x more prospects, immediately recognize those who can never buy, and be true Servant Leaders. Otherwise, with a 5% close rate, we’re merely wasting over 95% of our time and resource seeking the low hanging fruit, and missing a vital opportunity to find, and close, those who WILL buy. And more will buy, and quicker. Help people become buyers. Then sell.

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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 December 16th, 2024

Posted In: Listening, Sales

Decades ago I had an idea that questions could be vehicles to facilitate change in addition to eliciting answers. Convention went against me: the accepted use of questions as information gathering devices is built into our culture. But overlooked is their ability, if used differently, to facilitate congruent change.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

Standard questions gather information at the behest of an Asker and as such are biased by their words, goals, and intent. As such, they actually restrict our Communication Partner’s responses:

Need to Know Askers pose questions as per their own ‘need to know’, data collection, or curiosity.

These questions risk overlooking more relevant, accurate, and criteria-based answers that are stored in a Responder’s brain beyond the parameters of the question posed.

Why did you do X? vs How did you decide that X was your best option?

Manipulate agreement/response Questions that direct the Responder to respond in a way that fits the needs and expectations of the Asker.

These questions restrict possibility, cause resistance, create distrust, and encourage lying.

Can you see how doing Y would have been better? vs What would you need to consider to broaden your scope of consideration next time?

Doubt Directive These questions, sometimes called ‘leading questions’ are designed to cause Responders to doubt their own effectiveness, in order to create an opening for the Asker.

These narrow the range of possible responses, often creating some form of resistance or defensive lies; they certainly cause defensiveness and distrust.

Don’t you think you should consider doing X? vs Have you ever thought of alternate ways of achieving X?

Data gathering When worded badly, these questions limit the possible answers and overlook more accurate data.

What were the results of your search for Z? vs How did you choose the range of items to search for, and what results did you get?

Standard questions restrict responses to the Asker’s parameters, regardless of their intent or the influencer’s level of professionalism, care, or knowledge. Potentially important, accurate data – not to mention the real possibility of facilitating change – is left on the table and instead may promote distrust, bad data collection, and delayed success.

Decision Scientists end up gathering incomplete data that creates implementation issues; leaders and coaches push clients toward the change they perceive is needed and often miss the real change needed. The fields of sales and coaching are particularly egregious. The cost of bias and restriction is unimaginable.

Sharon-Drew’s new book came out 9/16/2023

Sample

WHAT IS AN ANSWER?

Used to elicit or push data, the very formulation of conventional questions restricts answers. If I ask ‘What did you have for breakfast?’ you cannot reply ‘I went to the gym yesterday.’ Every answer is restricted by the biases within the question.

Because we enter conversations with an agenda, intuition, directive, etc., the answers we receive are partial at best, inaccurate at worst, and potentially cause resistance, sabotage, and disregard.
There are unknown facts, feelings, historic data, goals, etc. that lie within the Responder’s unconscious that hold real answers and cannot be found using merely the Asker’s curiosity.
By approaching situations with the natural biases inherent in standard questions, Askers only obtain good data from Responder’s with similar backgrounds and thought processes.
Because influencers are unaware of how their particular bias restricts an answer, how much they are leaving ‘on the table’, or how their questions have skewered potential, they have no concept if there are different answers possible, and often move forward with bad data.

So why does it matter if we’re biasing our questions? It matters because we don’t get accurate answers; it matters because our questions instill resistance; it matters because we’re missing opportunities to serve and support change.

Imagine if we could reconfigure questions to elicit accurate data for researchers or marcom folks; or enable buyers to take quick action from ads, cold calls or large purchases; or help coaching clients change behaviors congruently, permanently, and quickly; or encourage buy-in during software implementations. I’m suggesting questions can facilitate real change.

WHAT IS CHANGE?

Our brain stores data rather haphazardly in our brain making it difficult sometimes to find the right answer when we need it, especially relevant when we want to make new choices.

Over the last decades, I have mapped the sequence of systemic change and designed a way to use questions as directional devices to pull relevant data in the proper sequence so influencers can lead Responders through their own change process without resistance.

This decision facilitation process enables quicker decisions and buy-in – not to mention truly offer a Servant Leader, win/win communication. Let’s look at how questions can enable change.

All of us are a ‘system’ of subjectivity collected during our lifetime: unique rules, values, habits, history, goals, experience, etc. that operates consensually to create and maintain us. It resides in our unconscious and defines us. Without it, we wouldn’t have criteria for any choices, or actions, or habits whatsoever. Our system is hard wired to keep us who we are.

To learn something new, to do something different or learn a new behavior, to buy something, to take vitamins or get a divorce or use new software or be willing to forgive a friend, change must come from within or it will be resisted.

People hear each other through their own biases. You ask biased questions, receive biased answers, and hit pay dirt only when your biases match. Everyone else will ignore, resist, misunderstand, mishear, act out, sabotage, forget, ignore, etc.
Due to their biased and restricting nature, standard questions won’t facilitate another’s change process regardless of the wisdom of your comments.
Without the Responder being ready, willing, and able to change according to their own criteria, they cannot buy, accept, adopt, or change in any way.

To manage congruent change, and enable the steps to achieve buy-in, I’ve developed Facilitative Questions™ that work comfortably with conventional questions and lead Responders to

find their own answers hidden within their unconscious,
retrieve complete, relevant, accurate answers at the right time, in the right order to
traverse the sequenced steps to congruent, systemic change/excellence, while
avoiding restriction and resistance and
include their own values and subjective experience.

It’s possible to help folks make internal changes and find their own brand of excellence.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

Facilitative Questions™ (FQs) use a new skill set – listening for systems – that is built upon systems thinking and facilitating folks through their unconscious to discover their own answers.

Using specific words, in a very specific sequence, it’s possible to pose questions that are free of bias, need or manipulation and guide congruent change. And it requires trust that Responders have their own answers.

Facilitative Question™ Not information gathering, pull, or manipulative, FQs are guiding/directional tools, like a GPS system. Using specific words in specific sequences they lead Responders congruently, without any bias, down their unique steps of change to Excellence. How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle? Or What has stopped you from adding ‘x’ to your current skill set until now?

When used with coaching clients, buyers, negotiation partners, advertisements, or even teenagers, these questions create action within the Responder, causing them to recognize internal incongruences and deficiencies, and be guided through their own options. (Because these questions aren’t natural to us, I’ve designed a tool and program to teach the ‘How’ of formulating them.).

The responses to FQs are quite different from conventional questions. By word sequencing, word choice, and placement they cause the Responder to expand their perspective and recognize a broad swath of possible answers. A well-formed FQ would be one we formulated for Wachovia Bank to open a cold call:

How would you know when it’s time to consider adding new banking partners for those times your current bank can’t give you what you need?

This question shifted the response from 100 prospecting calls from 10 appointments and 2 closes over 11 months to 37 meetings and 29 closes over 3 months. FQs found the right prospects and garnered engagement immediately.

Instead of pulling data, you’re directing the Responder’s unconscious to where their answers are stored. It’s possible Responders will ultimately get to their answers without Facilitative Questions, but using them, it’s possible to help Responders organize their change criteria very quickly accurately. Using Facilitative Questions, we must

Enter with a blank brain, as a neutral navigator, servant leader, with a goal to facilitate change.
Trust our Communication Partners have their own answers.
Stay away from information gathering or data sharing/gathering until they are needed at the end.
Focus on helping the Other define, recognize, and understand their system so they can discover where it’s broken.
Put aside ego, intuition, assumptions, and ‘need to know.’ We’ll never understand another’s subjective experience; we can later add our knowledge.
Listen for systems, not content.

FQs enable congruent, systemic, change. I recognize this is not the conventional use of questions, but we have a choice: we can either facilitate a Responder’s path down their own unique route and travel with them as Change Facilitators – ready with our ideas, solutions, directions as they discover a need we can support – or use conventional, biased questions that limit possibility.

For change to occur, people must go through these change steps anyway; we’re just making it more efficient for them as we connect through our desire to truly Serve. We can assist, or wait to find those who have already completed the journey. They must do it anyway: it might as well be with us.

I welcome opportunities to put Facilitative Questions into the world. Formulating them requires a new skill set that avoids any bias (Listening for Systems, for example). But they add an extra dimension to helping us all serve each other.

____________

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 December 9th, 2024

Posted In: Communication, Listening

As instructors you’re committed to collaborating with your students, inspiring their creativity and sparking their original ideas. You pose interesting questions to enthuse them and work hard at offering knowledge in a way that inspires their learning.

But are they hearing what you intend to convey?

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

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

Sample

HOW BRAINS LISTEN

Turns out there’s no absolute correlation between what a Speaker says and what a Listener hears – a very unsatisfactory reality when our professions are based on offering content that is meant to be understood and retained. Sadly there’s a probability that students are not taking away what we’re paid to teach them.

To give you a better idea of how this happens and how automatic and mechanical this process is, here are the steps brains perform when hearing spoken words.

1. A message (words, as puffs of air, initially without meaning) gets spoken and received as sound vibrations.

2. Dopamine processes incoming sound vibrations, deleting and filtering out some of them according to relevance to the Listener’s mental models.

3. What’s left gets sent to a CUE which turns the remaining vibrations into electrochemical signals.

4. The signals then get sent to the Central Executive Network (CEN) where they are dispatched to a ‘similar-enough’ neural circuit for translation into meaning.

Note: The preferred neural circuits that receive the signals are those most often used by the Listener, regardless of their relevance to what was said.

5. Upon arrival at these ‘similar-enough’ circuits, the brain discards any overage between the existing circuit and the incoming one and fills in any perceived holes with ‘other’ signals from neighboring circuits.

What we ‘hear’ is what remains. So: several deletions, a few additions, and translation into meaning by circuits that already exist.

In other words, what we think we hear, what our brain tells us was said, is some rendition of what a Speaker intends to convey biased by our own history. And when applying these concepts to training and instruction, neither the instructor nor the student knows the distance between what was said and what was heard.

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

HOW TO CONFIRM STUDENTS HEAR US

What does that mean for instructors? It means we have no idea if some/all/few of the students hear precisely what we are trying to convey. Or they might hear something similar, or something that offends them. They may hear something quite comfortable or something vastly different. They may misinterpret a homework assignment or a classroom instruction. It means they may not retain what we’re offering.

To make sure students understand what we intend to share, we must take an extra step when we instruct. Instead of merely assuming we’re presenting good content or asking creativity-building questions, we must assume we don’t know what the students have heard, regardless of how carefully we’ve worded our message.

In smaller classrooms I suggest we ask:

Can you each tell me what you heard me say?

Or, with a large class, say the same thing in several different ways: you can begin by explaining –

Because of the way brains hear incoming words, you’ll each translate what I’m saying differently. To make sure we’re all doing the same assignment, I’m going to tell you the homework assignment in several different ways:

Write a 3-page paper on [how your creativity is inspired]. Let me repeat this in a different way:

In 3 pages, explain what’s stopping you from [being as creative as you can be]. Or maybe this is clearer for you:

How do you ‘do’ your [creativity to end up with a new concept]? Explain in a 3 page paper. Or:

Hand in a 3 page paper that explains [your thinking process that triggers new ideas].

It might sound like extra work but the learners will:

understand what you intend for them to do (in their own way, but they’ll get the meaning);
promote uniform topic discussions;
eschew confusion and inspire original ideas;
circumvent regurgitation.

Since students sometimes fear offering original thoughts as they don’t want to hand in a ‘wrong’ answer, this type of exposition ensures they’ll all hear your intent and be willing to share their authentic responses. And, they’ll understand that if they don’t precisely grasp what their instructor is offering, it’s their brain’s fault.

______________________

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 November 25th, 2024

Posted In: Communication, Listening

« Previous Page — Next Page »

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

Assumptions: Why being right is wrong

The Importance of Confusion, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

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

What Do Prospects Do Behind-The-Scenes? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Change Facilitation™, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

To Retain Learning, Train the Brain First, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

The Real “Buyer’s Journey”: the reason selling doesn’t cause buying, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Questioning Questions

Are Your Students Hearing You? by Sharon-Drew Morgen