Sharon Drew Morgen – Page 8 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

A few years ago I had an incident that illustrated the restrictions of my own curiosity. I’d begun attending life drawing classes as an exercise to broaden my observation skills. In one session I had a horrific time trying to draw a model’s shoulder. I asked the man next to me – a real artist – for help.

Here was our conversation:

SDM: Hey, Ron. Can you help me please? Can you tell me how to think about drawing his shoulder?

Ron: Sure. Let’s see…. So what is it about your current sketch that you like?

SDM: Nothing.

Ron: If I put a gun to your head, what part would you like?

SDM: Nothing.

Ron: You’ve done a great job here, on his lower leg. Good line. Good proportion. That means you know how to do a lot of what you need on the shoulder.

SDM: I do? I didn’t know what I was doing. So how can I duplicate what I did unconsciously? I’m having an eye-hand-translation problem.

Ron: Let’s figure out how you drew that leg. Then we’ll break that down to mini actions, and see what you can use from what you already know. And I’ll teach you whatever you’re missing.

Ron’s brand of curiosity enabled me to make some unconscious skills conscious, and add new expertise where I was missing it in places I wouldn’t have looked. His curiosity had different biases from mine. He:

entered our discussion assuming I already had all of the answers I needed;
only added information specifically where I was missing some;
helped me find my own answers and be available to add knowledge in the exact place I was missing it.

My own curiosity would have gotten me nowhere. Here was my internal dialogue:

How the hell do I draw a twisted shoulder? This sucks. Is this an eye/hand problem? Should I be looking differently? I need an anatomy class. Should I be holding my charcoal differently? Is it too big a piece? I can’t see a shadow near his shoulder. Should I put in a false shadow to help me get the proportions right?

Ron’s curiosity – based on me already possessing the skills I needed – opened a wide range of possibilities for me. I never, ever would have found that solution on my own because my automatic assumptions would have limited my curiosity to little more than an extension of my current knowledge and beliefs.

WHAT IS CURIOSITY?

Curiosity is a good thing, right? As you can see from my story, it’s far more restricted than we imagine it would be. But what is it? Wikipedia defines curiosity thus: a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in human and animal species.

What, exactly, does this mean? What’s ‘inquisitive thinking’? Does it matter that everyone’s inquisitiveness is subjective, unique, and limited by their biases? ‘Evident by observation’? Evident to whom? And by what/whose standards? And ‘observation’? Really?

In this article, I’ll explore what stops us from being curious (and why it’s so difficult to recognize or learn from the data we find), offer loads of questions that will take you beyond assumptions, and steps to follow to enhance our curiosity.

IT’S A BRAIN THING

We all see, hear, feel the world through our subjectivity. Our assumptions, what we notice, what we’re curious about, is largely automatic mostly outside our control. Even worse, adding new ideas when we seek out answers to what we’re curious about is not so simple as, well, adding new ideas; it’s a listening problem and a brain problem.

Listening: It’s hard for us to take in new information when it goes against what we take for granted. Because of the way our brain filters incoming words, we end up (unwittingly) restricting what we think we hear Others say according to our own beliefs and history, i.e. subjectively. As a result we may not readily accept new ideas that are different from what we currently believe because we ‘hear’ them through our own biases, even if they offer relevant data on what we’re curious about.

Neural Circuits (brains): We can only be as curious as our existing neural circuits allow. Said another way our curiosity is restricted to what we have stored in memory, and we can’t notice, think, etc. anything we don’t have representative circuitry for. Try as we might, our subjectivity rules our lives.

Since our exploration involves some unconscious ‘givens’, here are some questions to inspire a broader curiosity:

How can we know that the information we retrieve is accurate, complete, or the most useful data available?
Can we be certain that our data gathering was sufficiently broad?
How do we know that a new piece of learning is important, even though it feels uncomfortable and we want to dismiss it?
Can we supersede our biases that we judge all incoming data against?

Hence, I pose the question: can we really ever be entirely curious?

WHY ARE WE CURIOUS?

There are several different reasons for curiosity. I’ve included questions under each category to help you consider each:

Need to know something we don’t know. Sometimes we need to know something we have no, or skimpy, knowledge about. How do we know the difference between the ‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ answer? How do we know the most effective resources? How do we pose our query to lead to the broadest range of answers? How do we know that what our brain translates for us is an accurate rendition of new content?
Desire to expand current knowledge. We need more data than we possess. How will we recognize when the available, additional data is the appropriate data set? How do we pose an inquiry that offers the broadest range of relevant knowledge? How can we keep from resisting new data if it runs counter to our long-held beliefs (given that new data gets compared against our existing, unconscious judgments)? How can we be certain that we will accurately understand new content?
Achieving a goal. We’re missing data to achieve a goal. How can we know the extent of what we’re missing, or know to accept new content if our existing data has been our go-to knowledge and it now might be incomplete?
Interest in another person’s knowledge. We suspect someone has knowledge we need, but don’t know how to judge what might be accurate. How can we adopt/adapt new content so we can avoid internal resistance, so we ensure what we think we’ve heard is an accurate portrayal of what was said? How can we language our inquiry to avoid limiting any possibilities?
Complete internal reference points. Influencers (coaches, leaders, consultants, sellers) seek to understand the Other’s Status Quo to formulate action points. How can we know if our ‘intuition’ (biased judgment) is broad enough to encompass all possibilities – and be able to go beyond it when necessary – to match the Other’s mental models and existing/historic brain circuits? How can we know for certain that what was said to them was understood accurately?
Comparator. We want to know if our current knowledge is accurate, or we’re ‘right’. But we unconsciously compare our query and hear responses against our subjective experiences, running the risk of acquiring partial knowledge, misunderstanding what was said, or blocking important data.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty impossible to seek, find, or receive what we don’t know what we don’t know. When we hear content that doesn’t fit our existing circuitry – regardless of the efficacy of the information – we face:

Resistance: By the time we’re adults, our subjective beliefs are pretty much built in and determine how we organize our worlds. When we hear something that goes against our beliefs – whether or not it’s accurate, conscious, or unconscious – we resist. That means new knowledge will be accepted in relation to what we already know and believe, potentially omitting important data and making real change difficult.
Restricting data: What we’re curious about is automatically biased, mistranslated, and limited by our subjective experience, ego needs, history, and current data set. We have no way to know if we accurately understand what’s been said, or if we’re posing our search query in a way that will include the full range of possible answers.
Restricting knowledge. Because our subjectivity limits the acceptance of new knowledge to what fits with our current knowledge (we’re only curious about stuff that is tangential to current knowledge), our brains automatically defend against anything that threatens what we know. So we unconsciously choose answers according to comfort or habit rather than according to accuracy or need.
Intuitive ‘Red Flag’. When our egos and professional identity are curious about something we have assumptions and expectations about, we limit possibility by our unconscious biases. How do we know if there aren’t a broader range of solutions that we’re not noticing or eliciting?

If you’re interested in learning how to consciously generate wholly new circuits to permanently change habits and behaviors I’ve developed a How of Change™ program. Here’s a one-hour sample video of me teaching in the 5 hour program.

HOW TO EXPAND YOUR CURIOSITY

In order to broaden our curiosity and allow our unconscious to accept the full data set available, we must evolve beyond our biases. Here’s how to have a full range of choice:

1. Frame the query: Create a generic series of questions to pose for yourself about your curiosity. Ask yourself:

how you’ll know your tolerance for non-expected, surprising answers,
what a full range of knowledge could include,
if your answers need to be within the range of what you already know or something wildly different,
if you’re willing/able to put aside your ‘intuition’, bias, and annoyance and seek and consider all possible answers regardless of comfort,
if you need to stay within a specific set of criteria and what the consequences are if you don’t.

2. Frame the parameters: Do some Google research. Before spending time accumulating data, recognize the parameters of possibility whether or not they match your comfortable criteria.

3. Recognize your foundational beliefs: Understand what you believe to be true, and consider how important it is for you to maintain that data set regardless of potentially conflicting, new information.

4. Be willing to change: Understand your willingness to adopt challenging data if it doesn’t fit within your current data set or beliefs.

5. Make your unconscious conscious: Put your conscious mind onto the ceiling and look down on yourself from the Observer/Witness/meta position. This provides neutral data, sams your biases and resistence.

6. Listen analytically: Listen to your self-talk. Compare it with the questions above. Note restrictions and decide if they can be overlooked. And recognizing your brain may play tricks on you, be sure to ask if what you think you heard and learned is accurate.

7. Analyze: Should you shift your parameters? Search options? What do you need to shift internally?

Curiosity effects every element of our lives. It can enhance, or restrict, growth, change, and professional skills. It limits and expands health, relationships, lifestyles and relationships. Without challenging our curiosity or intuition, we limit ourselves to maintaining our current assumptions.

What do you need to believe differently to be willing to forego comfort and ego-identity for the pursuit of the broadest range of possible answers? How will you know when, specifically, it would be important to have greater choice? We’ll never have all the answers, but we certainly can expand our choices.

If you’d like some coaching on how to use your conscious mind to get into your unconscious neural circuits, I’d love to help. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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

Sharon Drew Morgen October 21st, 2024

Posted In: Listening

I recently heard yet another excuse as to why a buyer didn’t buy: seller/buyer misalignment. Seriously? Because the seller didn’t close a sale (That was expected by the seller? In the mythical pipeline? According to the expectation of the seller?) there was a relationship problem? No. The problem stems from sellers not understanding what a buyer is, and what a buyer must know before self-identifying as a buyer. In this case, there was no buyer to be ‘misaligned’ with.

The fact is, selling doesn’t cause buying.

FROM PERSON TO BUYER

A decision not to purchase has very little to do with the seller, the solution, the relationship, or the need. In fact, making a purchase is the very last thing a buyer does. Just because a situation seems like a perfect fit with your solution does not make it a buying/ selling opportunity; just because someone really needs your solution does not mean they are ready, willing, or able to buy.

Let me begin by defining ‘Buyer’: a person (or group) who has

assembled all people, causes, and elements that created their problem and agreed to a problem definition AND
recognized they cannot fix the problem with familiar resources, usual vendors, or workarounds, AND
determined the risk of change and found it palatable, AND
gotten buy-in from everyone/everything involved with the changes a fix would affect, AND
decided that the cost of a fix is lower than maintaining the status quo,

and decides that purchasing an external solution is their best option.

As the thought-leader behind how buyers buy (programs, books, models, steps, terms, since 1985) , the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the person who coined the terms Buy Cycle, Buying Patterns, Buying Journey, Buying Decision Team, and How Buyers Buy, I’d like to offer some thoughts:

1. A buyer isn’t a buyer until they’ve bought something. Until then they are people with a problem who may, if they can’t resolve the issue themselves and the risk is manageable, seek an external solution.

2. Solving a problem never begins as a decision to buy anything (unless a small personal item), regardless of ‘need’. People don’t want to buy anything; they merely want to resolve a problem in the most efficient way with the least risk. Hence, they won’t respond to or read your marketing or sales content based on ‘need’.

3. People prefer to resolve their own problems. Workarounds are always the first option, a purchase the last.

4. Unless the risk of making a purchase is lower than the risk of staying the same, there will be no purchase regardless of the need or the efficacy of your solution. By seeking folks with ‘need’, sellers only find the low-hanging fruit and reduce their potential prospect audience by 80%.

5. A purchase occurs only when the stakeholder group has found the risk of change manageable and buys-in to something new. It’s only when there’s agreement from all elements that created the problem that

it can’t be fixed with known resources or workarounds,
the cost in resources/change is lower than the cost of the fallout of bringing in something new,
a path forward is defined by everyone who will touch the final solution,

that the full scope of a bringing in a new solution (i.e. buy something) is understood. Until then ‘need’ isn’t fully defined, people haven’t yet self-identified as ‘buyers’, they won’t read your content or take a meeting (unless to pick your brain), and no external solution is required. Here is where sellers often get caught thinking there’s a ‘need’ before the folks with the problem think there is one.

‘Need’ is NOT the criteria people use to buy. Until they are convinced they cannot solve their own problem and change without much disruption, until the understand and can accept the risk of change, they are not buyers and won’t heed pitches or appointment attempts.

6. There is a defined series of 13 (generic) steps that determine if, when, why, how, what to buy. A buying decision is a risk/change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. Until the full set of stakeholders have agreed they can’t fix the problem with familiar resources AND have developed a plan for congruent change with minimal risk, there is no willingness to seek an external solution. In other words, before people become buyers they’re merely people trying to fix a problem themselves.

Sample

7. People don’t need you to sell to them. They can get all the data they need from your site. They really need your help in traversing their decision steps: the time it takes them to figure this out (non-buying, cultural, systems/ rules based) is the length of the sales cycle, and sales overlooks this entirely.

8. Making a purchase is a risk/change management issue before it’s a solution choice problem. The first question people consider is how they can achieve Excellence with the least ‘cost/risk’ to the system; the last question they consider is what solution they’d need from ‘outside’. With a focus on placing solutions, there is no element of the sales model that facilitates systemic change. Sales overlooks the largest portion of the buyer’s journey – how to manage the change a fix will cost to the system.

9. Until any disruption caused by a purchase (i.e. all purchases are ‘foreign’ to the system) is understood, planned for, and agreed to, no purchase will take place. The existing environment is sacrosanct; keeping it running smoothly is more important to them than fixing a problem that’s already been baked into the system, especially if it would cost unwanted internal disruption.

10. Everyone and everything who created the current problem and would potentially touch a new solution must agree to any modification (purchase). This is why pitches, marketing, presentation will only be noticed by those who have completed their decision path.

11. The time it takes people/buyers to discover their own answers and know how to manage change in the least disruptive way, is the length of the sales cycle. It has nothing to do with selling, buying, need, relationship, content, or solutions until the route to congruent change is defined and agreed to. It’s a risk/change management issue before it’s a solution choice issue. And the sales model ignores this, causing 5% close rates instead of 40%.

12. The last thing people want is to buy something. With their criteria of ‘solution placement’, sellers often enter at the wrong time, ask the wrong questions, and offer the wrong data – and end up selling only to the low-hanging fruit (the 5% who have planned their route to change already).

13. Buyers buy using their own buying patterns, not a seller’s selling patterns. Using a specific type of sales effort further restricts the population of those who will buy. We don’t necessarily object to the products Robocalls promote. It’s the invasive selling patterns we object to.

14. There is a difference in goals, capability of changing, and level of buy-in between those who CAN/WILL buy vs those who sellers think SHOULD buy. By entering to seek folks in the process of solving a problem your solution can resolve, we can find and capture 40% of those on route to become buyers.

15. The time it takes people to come up with their complete set of buy-in and change-based answers is the time it takes them to seek an external solution – i.e. become a buyer. Let me say this again: Buying has nothing whatsoever to do with their need, your solution, or your relationship.

By only listening for clues that lead you to assume a ‘need’ for your solution, by entering into ‘relationships’ based on what you’re selling, by only asking questions to ‘prove’ a need/solution match (too often with only one or two members of the full Buying Decision Team), you’re not only biasing the interaction, but limiting your sales to closing those who have gotten to the point when they’re ready, willing, able to change – the low hanging fruit; you’re missing the opportunity to enter earlier, develop a real relationship, and facilitate the path that people who CAN buy must take before they are buyers.

The current sales model ignores the possibility of facilitative buying, or becoming real relationship managers and true consultants and Servant Leaders.

In other words, the sales model enters too early in the buying decision journey to reach or serve the maximum number of prospects.

BUYING FACILITATION®

Potential buyers need your help figuring out how to figure it all out much more than they need a product pitch, or more biased questions, that attempt to uncover a ‘need’ they don’t yet know they have.

I’ve developed a model (Buying Facilitation®) that uses wholly unique skills (Listening for Systems, Facilitative Questions, etc.) to facilitate a prospective buyer’s route to Excellence.

A generic model used for coaching, management, leadership, healthcare, Buying Facilitation® finds folks trying to solve a problem in the area of your solution, then leads them down their decision path and turns them into buyers in one-eighth the time it would take them to close.

I’ve been quite successful teaching it to global corporations ( i.e. 100,00 sales professionals at companies such as IBM, Kaiser, Wachovia, P&G, KPMG, etc.) to increase their sales. In fact, over 30 decades, my client’s pilot training groups close 8x more sales on average over the control groups, regardless of product or price.

Currently you’re now wasting 95% of your time running after those few who have finally arrived at step 10 – the low hanging fruit – ignoring the much larger pool of those who are on route, and fighting for a competitive advantage.

By adding new functionality to the front end of your sales model, you can enter earlier, be a Servant Leader, and facilitate congruent change and THEN be on board as a provider as they go through their buying decision process.

Buying Facilitation® is NOT sales; it’s NOT selling/purchase-based; it IS change- and decision-based. Right now you’re waiting while buyers do this anyway (or merely running after those you THINK have a need but end up fixing the problem in other ways) because all people must manage their change before they are buyers. Why not add a skill set, stop wasting time/effort, and close more. Then you’ll never be ‘misaligned.’

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

Sharon Drew Morgen October 14th, 2024

Posted In: Communication

I’m a dancer. When I studied the Argentine Tango there was a foundational metaphor that I believe is true for all leaders: The leader opens the door for the follower to pass through using her own unique style; the leader then follows. If anyone notices the leader, he’s not doing his job. The goal is to showcase the follower.

Much of what is written about leadership falls into the category I call ‘trait-centered leadership’: someone deemed ‘at the top’ who uses their personality, influence, motivational skills and charisma to inspire and give followers a convincing reason to follow an agenda set by the leader or the leader’s boss – a mixture of Jack Welch, Oprah, and Moses.

But what if the leader’s goal overrides the mental models, beliefs or historic experiences of the followers? Or the change is pushed against the follower’s values, and resistance ensues? What happens when the leader uses their personality as the fulcrum to cause change? What if the leader has a great message and incongruent skills? Or charisma and no integrity? Adolf Hitler, after all, was the most charismatic leader in the 20th Century.

WHAT IS A LEADER?

Whether it’s for a group that needs to perform a new task, or for someone seeking heightened outcomes, the role of leadership is to

facilitate congruent change and choice by
enabling followers to discover their optimal behaviors
in accordance with their own values, beliefs, and ability,
to match agreed-upon requirements
without resistance.

In other words, enable them to employ their best skills in service of an agreed-upon outcome. It demands humility and authenticity of the leader to let go of their own concept of success and enable Others to bring their ideas, skills, values, and commitment to the project to meet agreed-upon outcomes uniquely. This way, the followers share their best ideas, creativity multiplies, and resistance is avoided as everyone buys-in to the project they own.

This type of leadership is other-centered and devoid of ego, similar to a flashlight that merely illuminates the most harmonious path, enabling followers to discover their own excellence within the context of the change sought.

And remember: change is an inside job. Leaders are outsiders.

YOU CAN’T LEAD IF YOU CAN’T FOLLOW

Too often leaders use their own assumptions and goals to influence and persuade others to comply with their vision. They begin with something they want to accomplish and work hard at inspiring their followers to make the fixes they believe necessary, using their passion and motivational skills to encourage buy-in, later wondering why they’re not on target, or work is falling through the cracks.

But being inspirational, or a good influencer with presence and empathy, or a great storyteller that seeks to motivate, or even being a ‘nice guy’ that staff generally likes following, merely enlists those whose beliefs and unconscious mental models are already predisposed to the change. It omits, or gets resistance from, those who should be part of the change but whose mental models don’t align.

When we try to change others, we only reach those who have a conscious ability to comply, bypassing those who could use what we have to say but aren’t ready to change. I call this trait-centered leadership: using our own skills as influencing strategies.

Sample

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

What if our jobs were to serve? What if we trusted that Others had good skills, and by agreeing on a course of action that met everyone’s values and the ultimate requirements, help them figure out how to get there their own way?

If we enter our leadership situations as Servant Leaders we are guiding Others through to their own best actions in the area we seek to shift, facilitating them through their own ability to change according to their own beliefs and norms. This form of leadership has pluses and minuses.

Minuses: the final outcome may look different than originally envisaged because the followers set the route according to their values and mental models.
Pluses: everyone will be enthusiastically, creatively involved in designing what will show up as their own mission – meeting the vision of the leaders (although it might look different), and owning it with no resistance.

Do you want to lead through influence, presence, charisma, rationality? Or facilitate Another through their own unique path to congruent change and ownership? Do you want people to see you as a charismatic chief? Or teach them how to congruently move beyond their status quo and discover their own route to excellence – with you as the GPS? Do you want to push your agenda using your own ideas? Or enable followers to discover their own route to systemic change? They are opposite constructs.

POWER VS. FORCE

Here are some differences in beliefs between trait-centered leadership and more the more facilitative leadership that I call Servant Leadership:

Trait-centered: Top down; behavior change and goal-driven; dependent on power, charisma, and persuasion skills of a leader and may not be congruent with foundational values of followers.

Facilitation-centered: Inclusive (everyone buys-in and agrees to goals, direction, change); core belief-change and excellence-driven; dependent on facilitating route to excellence rather than developing and strategizing the route to enable systemic buy-in and adoption of new behaviors.

Remember that real change happens at the unconscious belief level. Attempting to change behaviors without helping people change their beliefs first meets with resistance regardless of the efficacy of the solution or the need for the change.

New skills are necessary for the facilitation-centered, Servant Leadership style I suggest:

1. Listen for systems. This enables leaders to hear the elements that created and maintain the status quo and would need to transform from the inside before any lasting change occurs. Typical listening is biased and restricts possibility.

Sample

2. Facilitative Questions. Conventional questions are biased by the beliefs and needs of the Questioner, and restrict answers and possibility.

3. Code the route to systemic change. Before asking folks to buy-in, facilitate them down the 13 steps of change to build consensus and collaborate to define, agree on, and set strategy for, the necessary changes thereby avoiding resistance.

Sometimes Leaders assume that their job is to assign tasks and get shit down. From what I’ve learned with clients, that only gets them mediocre results, resistance and time wastage. Worse, it fails to capture the passion and creativity of the followers. Be the Servant Leaders who open the door and follow your followers.

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Sharon Drew Morgen September 30th, 2024

Posted In: Change Management, Listening

I’ve trained many coaches, all of them passionate about serving their clients and helping them be their best selves. And yet sometimes they miss the mark. It’s their brain’s fault. Let me explain.

A client seeks a coach when they seek change, often after trying to make the change themselves. One of the main skills coaches use is listening to best identify the problem. But sometimes, through no fault of their own, coaches don’t accurately hear what their clients tell them.

EARS DON’T HEAR WHAT’S SAID

The problem is that our ears don’t actually hear words. To make it worse, words don’t get translated according to the Speaker’s meaning but according to the Listener’s existing neural circuits. In other words, sometimes neither the coach nor the client hear exactly what’s been said.

The problem occurs in our unconscious listening filters. As I write in my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? the problem lies in our brains.

Sample

Here’s what happens. Words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations. After these are filtered (and some discarded!), our brain then sends them on to become signals that eventually get dispatched to a ‘similar enough’ (the term used in neuroscience) circuits that have translated similar signals before. And – this part is the most disturbing – where the signals don’t match up, our brains kindly discard the differences!

In other words, incoming thoughts and meanings get translated in our brains according to our current biases and knowledge, often missing the real intent, nuance, patterns, and comprehensive contextual framework and implications.

Sample

When we think we’re listening carefully, we naturally assume we’ve accurately heard what clients want to tell us. But given how unreliably our brain translates incoming words, there’s a good chance we won’t fully understand.

Bias. By listening specifically for details, motivation, or story line, a coach’s brain will merely hear what it has a history of hearing. This causes a problem for a client. If:

there are unspoken or omitted bits,
there are meta patterns that should be noticed,
there are unstated historic – or subconscious – reasons behind the current situation that aren’t obvious,

the coach may believe something different was meant and might make the wrong assumptions, potentially offering inappropriate suggestions or comments.

Assumptions. If a coach has had somewhat similar discussions with other clients, or historic, unconscious, beliefs are touched that bring to mind questions or solutions they’ve used with others, coaches might offer clients flawed or inadequate suggestions.

Habits. If a coach has a client base in one area – say, real estate, or leadership – s/he may unconsciously enter the conversation with automatic habits from handling similar situations and miss the unique issues, patterns, and unspoken foundation that may hold the key to success.

WAYS TO HEAR MORE ACCURATELY

Disassociate

One way to avoid unwittingly misunderstanding or mishearing is to disassociate – go up on the ceiling and look down. This goes a long way to minimizing our personal biases, assumptions, triggers or habits, enabling us to hear what’s meant (spoken or not).

For those unfamiliar with disassociation, try this: during a phone chat, put your legs up on the desk and push your body back against the chair, or stand up. For in-person discussions, stand up and/or walk around. [I have walked around rooms during Board meetings while consulting for Fortune 100 companies. They wanted excellence regardless of my physical comportment.] Both of those physical perspectives offer the physiology of choice and the ability to move outside of our instincts. Try it.

For those wanting more information on disassociation, I explain in What? how to trigger ourselves to new choices the moment there is a potential incongruence.

Phrase to use

Given the possibility that you may not be ‘hearing’ accurately, the best way I know to get it right is to say this:

“In case there is a chance I didn’t accurately understand what you’re saying, I’m going to tell you what I heard. Please correct me where I’m wrong.”

That way you both end up on the same page. And to help you enter calls with fewer assumptions.

For those times it’s important for you to hear accurately, here are some questions for you to consider:

What would you need to believe differently to assume every speaker, every call, is a mystery you’re entering into? One you’ve never experienced before? To start each call with Beginner’s Mind?
What can you do to trigger yourself beyond your natural assumptions, and use them to pose a follow up question to yourself: What am I missing here?
What will you hear from your client to let you know that you’ve made an assumption that may not be accurate?
How can you stay on track during a call to make sure you’ve helped them discover their own unconscious drivers and aren’t biased by previous calls?

It’s possible to help your brain go beyond its natural, automatic translation processes. I can help you do this one-day program on listening if you’re interested. Or read W hat?. The most important take-away is to recognize your brain’s unconscious activity, and learn how to override it.

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Sharon Drew Morgen September 23rd, 2024

Posted In: Listening, News

I used to live in Taos, New Mexico, where I bought everything I ate from a small grocery called Cid’s Market. Run by Cid and Betty Backer, they always offered fresh organic produce, freshly cooked healthy meals, and a health/vitamin section that had everything I wanted. The store environment was happy and very obviously committed to the Taos community. It felt like MY STORE each time I went in. Any question I had was answered; anything I needed was procured, even if it meant they went out and bought me the item at a different store! I was a rabid fan.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who loved them. In the 11 years I lived there (1989-2000) I watched as they grew from a small store to a three story building taking up half a city block. Their service to customers was exceptional. Every morning as the store opened, Cid held a brief meeting with the entire team. “Who pays your salary?” he’d ask. They’d respond “The Customer!” And then they’d start their day.

Everyone’s job was to take care of customers, whatever that entailed. They didn’t need to ‘follow the rules’: that WAS the rule. And creativity and service ensued: In the health department, the manager created free evening community programs for different groups – diabetes sufferers, parents with kids who wouldn’t eat veggies; the produce manager created free cooking classes and lessons on growing organic veggies. Everyone was trusted to make their best decisions and the customers felt their commitment and respect. And in 1993 that was unusual.

One year, on a plane to Mexico to give a keynote address about Servant Leadership, I noticed Cid and Betty.

“Are you going on vacation?” I asked?

“No. We’re going to a conference on Servant Leadership.”

“Oh. I didn’t think a grocery store would seek out that sort of thing.”

“We’re going mostly to learn what we need to learn to serve our employees. If we can’t give them the respect they deserve, and create an environment in which they thrive, we can’t run a business that will also serve our customers. We go to one conference a year to learn all the tools we can so we all have the best knowledge available to serve with.”

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They understood that their success came from serving people, community, customers and staff. And they actively made it a priority.

WHAT ARE OUR JOBS?

When corporations consider what their jobs are, they sometimes think Profits, or Products, or Shareholders. But I think it’s something else. Think about it: there’s no job that doesn’t include serving:

Sell more? Serve customers.
Grow the business, be respected in the industry, and retain clients? Serve the company.
Retain and inspire good people with tools to inspire creativity? Serve employees.
Maintain optimal skills and health? Serve ourselves.
Maintain communication skills? Serve each other.

Without hiring and retaining good people that know how to lead collaboratively; without the skills to help managers, sales folks, team leaders, facilitate buy-in; without the creativity from an entire group that, working together, can develop top notch solutions that produce competitive and imaginative solutions; none of us are in business. No matter what our jobs, our core business is to serve.

Unfortunately, too many of us unwittingly follow trends that take us away from our core business of serving. For example, too many companies have chosen the trend of using their websites to collect names. They embed pop ups to retrieve email addresses, making it impossible to find answers to questions and rendering the site unusable (unless you agree to the cookies) and annoying folks with real interest who might even be customers.

Obviously they’re putting their own goals before those of a possible customer. Why would a company do that? Especially the smaller companies who truly depend on offering information as a sales strategy. Is acquiring my name to push out marketing materials that important? Don’t they know I’ll leave the site rather than agree to accept more spam? That they’ll lose my business because I don’t want my name captured? Those companies have lost their way: they are only serving themselves.

OUR JOBS ARE TO SERVE

What if our real jobs weren’t only to collect data, or create content, or push products? What if our jobs were merely to serve? That requires a new skill set, a different viewpoint that produces very different results:

Leaders wouldn’t be getting resistance because they’d attain buy-in and work collaboratively to engage all voices before making change.
Sellers would only pitch to those ready to buy, and use the bulk of their now-wasted time to facilitate people them through their buying decision path as they figured out how to achieve their own type of excellence (and possibly buy solutions).
Managers would hire people whose goal was to serve and retain them because the company’s practices facilitated their excellence.
Coaches would use Facilitative Questions to guide folks to their own answers, trusting each person had their own type of excellence to achieve without the biases of an outsider.
Tech folks would save a great deal of time on projects because they’d be curious without bias, gathering the most accurate data the first time and avoiding biased assumptions that caused flawed results and user complaints.
Companies would be aware of the environment, the role they play in it, and factor in climate issues as a way to serve the planet while serving customers.
Senior Management would dictate that each employee, as well as customers, be cared for respectfully. When an employee isn’t happy, it’s difficult for them to care about customers.

By maintaining focus on ourselves, on our individual needs, we miss the larger picture. By using our jobs and companies as the vehicle to serve others and the planet, we will all live in an excellent world.

__________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen September 16th, 2024

Posted In: News

How do original thinkers, folks with exceptional, trademarked IP, handle plagiarism and misrepresentation? How can we ensure our work gets in the world without it being misdefined, misused, or pirated? And what do we do when the misrepresentation and pirating harms others?

In the age of artificial intelligence, many of us are at risk of losing our cutting-edge ideas to the melting pot of mediocrity. How we handle it is an open question.

MY IP HAS BEEN MISAPPROPRIATED

I’ve recently gotten several calls from clients of Jeff Molander at Spark Selling Academy divulging his misuse and plagiarism of one of my inventions, Facilitative Questions™ (FQs), and sending me copies of the articles, videos, guides, and courses that directly lift my words from my books and articles with no attribution. Worse, the material is presented out of context, with inaccurate use and definition.

Without proper training or licensing, without understanding the material and with no attribution, with the actual paperwork in hand from his clients, I see that Molander is training and coaching my FQs out of context as manipulation devices, wholly outside their intended use.

Molander and I have history. Years ago, I discovered the first of Molander’s articles titled ‘Facilitative Questions’. It contained content taken directly from my books and articles without attribution, and wholly misrepresented my work. He took it down.

But the problem continued: each time I discovered his articles misrepresenting my work I offered to train and license him so he’d learn/understand/use the material accurately. Each time he refused but agreed to take the faulty content down. I kept believing him. I shouldn’t have.

I now have actual proof that Molander continues to pirate exact words directly from my writings but with the wrong explanations and intent, and gets paid to teach it. To sum it up, Molander is using FQs as the “foundational” skill offered at the Academy in his videos, coaching, user materials, and workshops

without attribution,
without training or licensing,
without using them accurately or as intended.

Sadly, folks studying with Molander are learning distorted fragments of FQs as manipulation tools (he uses them to provoke curiosity) instead of the Servant Leader, ethical tools, that lead folks efficiently through their values-based, unbiased decision making (in this case, buying decisions).

His misinterpretation of my work not only harms his clients but also harms my brand that I’ve worked hard to build and sustain for 40 years. And the only ethical solution I can think of is to find the folks he’s trained so I can offer them free, accurate training.

WHO AM I?

I should probably tell you who I am. I’m an original thinker and inventor of systemic brain change models, that enable folks to get to the relevant neural circuits for change and decision making. One of my inventions is Buying Facilitation®, a model that finds and leads would-be prospects through the Pre-Sales, change management steps they must take on route to self-identifying as buyers.

To say it simply, in the area of sales, I help people figure out the decisions they need to make in their unique situations before they can buy anything – a front-end to sales.

Some of you may know me from my New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity. But how I got here was circuitous.

In 1983, after years of being a successful sales person, I started up a tech company where I was hit upside the head with the problem I’d had with prospects not buying: as an entrepreneur, before the team could consider buying anything, we first tried to fix our problems ourselves. If we couldn’t, we then needed to understand our risk of change. Before deciding to buy anything we had to know for sure that the risk of bringing in something new was not greater than the risk of staying the same.

So different from the sales model that only addresses assumed needs and a seller’s solution placement issues, not the internal decision issues folks had to discern before making a buying decision. Sales actually starts at the end of the buying decision path.

When I realized this I began my decades-long focus (inventing tools, writing books/articles, doing global training) on developing ethical tools to facilitate buying decisions as an adjunct to selling.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

Knowing my own questions to prospects had bias, and now realizing that prospects lived in unique environments that required buy-in and risk management before buying, I wondered if there was a way to help prospects efficiently figure out the decision path they had to traverse before they could buy.

Enter Facilitative Questions™. Different from standard questions, they use a new form of listening, specific words in specific sequences, and traverse a stepped pathway to personal decision-making, helping prospects and first contacts quickly figure out their Pre-Sales decision issues that then lead to them buying.

Facilitative Questions™

To learn Facilitative Questions™

Not just for sales, FQs are extremely effective at enabling very quick values-based decisions – great for docs to help patients change habits, for sellers to help prospects take action, and for coaches to help clients make permanent change. They require days of training and months of practice. In the wrong hands, with the wrong intent, FQs become highly effective manipulation tools.

BEYOND PLAGIARISM

Unfortunately, over the years, several folks have plagiarized FQs from my books and articles. They all removed the offending materials eventually. But Molander plans to continue, saying that because he allegedly shared an online course with a buddy and read some of my books, because my work is in the public domain, he’s entitled to it.

Worse, the materials I have from Spark reveal he’s taken it beyond plagiarism: he’s also defining FQs inaccurately and twisting their use to manipulate selling – the precise opposite of the reason I spent 10 years inventing them. Certainly they’re not being used to facilitate the precise steps of off-line risk management and decision making.

It’s currently unclear if Molander will ever stop without going to court. But in the meantime, I want to find folks who have been misled and train them properly. My email: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Managing plagiarism and misuse is a problem we all face these days and as yet there are no standards to follow. I’d love to start a dialogue with other original thinkers having similar issues.

____________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen September 9th, 2024

Posted In: News

I’m curious why so many professionals are satisfied using change and support practices knowing the fail rates in their industry: change management has a 97% fail rate as do all Behavior Modification practices; coaching and training have a 90% fail rate; and sales a 95% fail rate.

A leader in the Change Management field complained of persistent resistance during a recent call, showing me the model he was using that had ‘connect with/convince people’ at Step 6. I suggested the problem might be he brought people in too late to gather the full fact pattern of the underlying problem making goal-setting certain to be flawed, and setting up resistance when solutions are thrust on folks without their input.

Why, I wondered, had he kept using a change model that regularly got resistance rather than do something different? “What else can I do? There’s nothing else to use.”

Sales is also based on a flawed premise, starting with a desire to place solutions and prospecting for folks with a ‘need’ by posing biased questions they can then sell into. But with a 5% close rate, ‘need’ may not be the reason people buy.

Coaching has a similar problem. Coaches assume they must ‘understand’ the client’s problem by posing questions meant to either gather data or lead to problem solving. And yet clients often don’t find a permanent solutions.

WHY YOU CAN’T CHANGE OTHER’S BEHAVIORS

I’ve developed new models that increase successful permanent change, and enable efficient values-based decision making that use different intent and tools. But I’d like to first offer you some of my Morgenisms:

You can’t change a behavior by trying to change a behavior;
Selling doesn’t cause buying;
The time it takes people to understand their risk of change is the length of the change/sales cycle;
Brains hear as per a Listener’s existing (historic, biased) neural circuits that translate the incoming sound vibrations/signals (i.e. words) into meaning, very often quite different than the intent of the Speaker.
Questions are posed using the Asker’s wording, intent, needs and goals, and as such, are biased by the assumptions of the Asker, which may not be aligned with the needs, goals of the Receiver.

In other words, using conventional practices (questions, stories, examples, explanations, information sharing) influencers may not be able to persuade Others to act on their suggestions as there’s a strong possibility they won’t accurately hear/interpret what’s been said. As I’ll explain, there’s a way to help folks make necessary changes directly in their brains.

WHERE DOES CHANGE COME FROM?

Any change, any decision, any willingness to do, know, be something different requires different actions in the brain. Standard models attempt to change behaviors by trying to change behaviors! Not possible, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution presented: behaviors are outputs from specific prompts in the brain, not changeable without changing the original neural programming that triggered them.

Change is a brain thing. The dilemma for influencers is that due to the way brains listen and store history, information provided may not reach the specific circuits that triggered the problematic action. Just because we lead others through what seems like a rational change or decision-making process, or try to convince folks to eat healthy or pitch them a great solution, doesn’t mean our words will change the place in the brain where their problem initiated.

What is we give influencers the job of changing brains rather than behaviors, so the client can then make their necessary behavior changes from within.

Sample

NOT VENUS RISING

Behaviors are the result, the outputs, of meaningless electrochemical computations in the brain; they do not arise like Venus from the sea.

When we try to change behaviors without changing the circuits that triggered them, it’s like telling a forward moving robot to move backwards by explaining why it should, or showing it a video of other backwards robots, or telling it a story of the benefits of flexibility. You must go back to the original programming and reprogram. And the job of influencing change is both a listening problem and a questioning problem.

THE LISTENING PROBLEM

I’ll explain the issues that make change a problem for outside influencers. To begin with, it’s a listening problem. Brains don’t hear incoming words as per the meaning the Speaker intended.

Incoming sound vibrations (words, or ‘meaningless puffs of air’ as neuroscience calls them) get translated according to the existing neural circuits in the brain of the Listener (i.e. biased, restricted), circuits that may have no relation at all to what was said or how distant it is from the original intent. It’s automatic, meaningless, and electrochemical.

Indeed, there’s a good chance something said will be misinterpreted by the Listener. It’s all unconscious and electrochemical. Think motherboard.

It becomes a multifaceted problem: Speakers may misunderstand Responders, Responders may misunderstand Speakers. And no one knows how their intended message was received or if what they think they heard is accurate.

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Obviously this gives leaders, docs, coaches, and sellers dilemmas when they offer what they consider necessary information (no matter how relevant).

That’s the first hurdle. The next is the questions we ask.

THE QUESTION PROBLEM

Leaders, coaches, sellers, and doctors try to pose ‘right’ questions to discover the Other’s problem or to gather data to understand. This is problematic in many ways:

Both Speaker or Listener may inaccurately hear what the other intends to convey, possibly misinterpreting what was said without being aware they’re doing so;
The question may not be worded in a way that the Listener hears what’s intended and may unconsciously go against the values of the Listener causing resistance.

To address these problems I spent 10 years inventing a wholly new form of question [Facilitative Question], and 13 steps of change that enable Listeners to accurately hear the incoming message and leads them to the relevant brain circuits where the initiating triggers reside for discovery and change.

In other words, Influencers unwittingly use questions that may not 1. gather accurate data, 2. be heard accurately, 3. enable the Responder to reprogram their brain to make change possible. Hence you end up with change initiatives that

face resistance and sabotage,
fail to collect the full data set and face faulty goals, time delays, and resistance,
are based on the viewpoints of a small group who seem to believe they can speak for the entire group
fly in the face of the beliefs and values of the underlying system,
assume Listeners will make permanent change based on direction from a seller, healthcare provider, leaders, or coach,
don’t trust that Others have their own answers or routes to permanent change.

But it’s possible to facilitate Others through to permanent brain change. My book HOW? teaches Change Facilitation to accomplish this, including traversing the steps of change, formulating Facilitative Questions, changing perspectives, shifting hierarchies of beliefs, and listening without bias. Additionally, I coach and train folks to enable influencers to facilitate permanent, congruent change directly from the appropriate neural circuits.

I recognize this isn’t standard thinking yet. But my Change Facilitation model has been successfully trained to 100,000 sales folks and leaders globally. Contact me and I can coach or train you.

_______________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen August 26th, 2024

Posted In: Sales

Change gets a bad rap. Confusion, time delays, resistance, goal resets. We keep trying new approaches to change management, but none of them seem to work. The reason? We’re not addressing the underlying, systemic issues that create and maintain them. Once we know and execute the steps to congruent change, the problems fall away.

My orientation around change originates in my profession: I invent systemic brain change models for sales, leadership, coaching, change management, and training, all presuming that change is systemic, with lots of moving parts that must collaborate for a successful outcome.

Currently, change agents merely attempt to change the outcomes, the activities they want fixed. But behaviors are outputs, end results. It seems obvious to me that you can’t change anything by starting at the end. Change must be initiated from the source, by reprogramming the input.

Trying to change a behavior by merely trying to change a behavior is like trying to change a table (output) into a chair (output) without going back to the initial programming that generated the chair to begin with.

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My latest book lays out specifically HOW to get into the unconscious to find the right circuits for change and decision making and HOW to generate new circuits for learning and change.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

Both the change process and decision making have specific steps that must be addressed sequentially (and this can be iterative), starting at the very beginning.

1. Full data set: to understand, quantify and assess the problem, to end up with congruent, systemic change, it’s necessary to assemble and analyze the full set of ‘givens’. This sounds easier than it is. Since change is systemic it’s necessary that all elements that have caused and maintained the problem be included from the very beginning. Without the complete data set it’s impossible to fully grasp the problem, let alone understand the needs or goals change would address.

Obviously you can’t know the full data set of a problem until you’ve assembled and gotten feedback from the people and job descriptions who touch the current problem and will be involved in the ultimate solution. I’m always surprised when I hear leaders say they’ve omitted gathering data from front line workers or middle managers. This fact alone causes resistance and time delays!

Rule: to understand or define a problem and design a specific outcome, wait until you have the full data set of how it was created and maintained.

2. Workarounds: Once the problem is fully defined and all who touch the problem and solution are engaged, it’s necessary to ascertain if it’s possible to fix it by trialing solutions that are available and familiar. Often this involves brainstorming and taking time away to ponder. I have my clients tell their folks to go away for a week, have small group meetings in which they think and brainstorm before coming back with the group’s thoughts.

To maintain Systems Congruence, any change must be congruent with the beliefs, rules and norms of the system. Again, this means the full complement of job descriptions, etc. must be involved. Overlooking them means resistance.

A good way to avoid this is to first try known resources (familiar consultants, expanded versions of current software, etc.) that adhere to the same beliefs, norms and rules.

Rule: Once a problem is correctly defined, first trial solutions among known/familiar resources.

3. Risk Management: If there are no available known resources, the next step involves the biggest issue: risk. Until the risk of change is understood and found manageable by the folks who will be affected by it, there will be no decision to change (or at least major resistance).

Rule: if the risk of change is higher than maintaining the status quo, no change will be made. Any proposed change must carry the same or a lower risk than the initial problem.

4. Buy-in for change: If there’s no known solution that will resolve the problem, and everyone agrees the risk is manageable, an external solution – a consultant, a piece of software, a training program, a product purchase – can be sought with everyone’s approval.

Rule: whatever is brought in must match the norms, beliefs, rules of the system, and everyone who will touch the new solution must buy-in.

Sample

Here’s my book that details the 13 steps of change. While seeming to be a book for sales, it’s a deep dive into the specific steps people make during decision making.

LEADERSHIP MUST FACILITATE

From what I’ve experienced with my clients, change is too often approached as merely a behavior change activity with leaders defining the problem with less-than accurate, or incomplete, data, assumptions, and almost always without the right complement of people included.

In other words, the problem gets mis-defined, people’s beliefs and egos get out of whack, a full complement of creative and needed suggestions get overlooked, and resistance rears its ugly head.

I’ve got some questions to help you think this through:

What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to give up the control you prefer and not determine any outcomes or make any assumptions until you’ve assembled the full complement of people to provide the full data set?
How will you all know to assess the risk? Whose voices must be included? What does risk look like?
What will you need to do differently to step back from any control you’re accustomed to having during a project?

I hope this has helped you create change management projects devoid of problems. If you need to talk the issues through or need help designing a project with no resistance and less time wastage, I’d be glad to help. Sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_______________________

Sharon Drew Morgen August 19th, 2024

Posted In: Change Management

From Facebook Aug. 2024

For those of you who watched any of the Olympics, you might have seen Snoop Dogg swimming with Michael Phelps (“Will someone please get me some oxygen!”), or holding the Olympic Torch, or trying to throw a javelin. Snoop Dogg, you see, was the NBC Goodwill Ambassador to the Games. What fun he seemed to be having! What fun to watch Snoop in his authentic merriment.

He said, “I had fun just being Snoop Dogg. That’s what I know how to do best. I got paid [$499,000 per day] for being me.”

Hmmmm. That caused me to wonder how many of us only seek out jobs that pay us for being who we are, for being treated with kindness and respect, and jobs that help us enrich our creativity.

Thankfully there were decades when teaching my own inventions (Buying Facilitation®, Facilitative Questions™, the HOW of change) that I earned money for being me, times I lived anxiety-free, filled with the joy of sharing all that I am, being highly creative, and being respected for my input and ideas. In fact, the more I represented the real ‘me’, the more money I made.

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But in much of my earlier life I got paid for being someone others needed me to be, or what was expected of me; times I gave up my values to earn money because I needed to feed a family. Whenever I did so I felt dirty and disrespected myself. I certainly wasn’t being creative, or the inventor of brain-change models that I morphed into when being my best self.

MY CLIENT CURED ME

My breakthrough came when I agreed to train groups in Sydney and Paris for a large sum of money. Didn’t take me long to realize how demanding and disrespectful my client Jim was. Often I would get off the phone and scream from anger and hurt. Afraid to rock the boat too much, I managed to occasionally say “You know, Jim, sometimes when you say things like that it hurts me.” Sorry, he’d say. And do it again the next week. I hated us both.

It came to a head on a conference call with one of his vendors, something I did not want to do because these folks used a mainstream sales model and would resent being asked to change. “Please,” he said. “As a favor to me. I want them to learn Buying Facilitation® with the rest of us so we’re all using the same tools.”

I went into the call with the best intentions. It didn’t take long before they realized I was offering something different from what they were doing and became mean and confrontational. I kept making light of it, telling them I heard them, and yes, it was different. But this only upped their disrespect. Jim watched as they attacked me and said nothing. Personally, I would never have continued a call like this, but I stayed on because it was a high-income job, and I’d promised. And I kept expecting him to intervene.

Eventually I began crying. Jim said nothing, then said he had to go, leaving me on Zoom with these abusers. Shortly after he left the call I told them I felt disrespected and had to get off. I immediately emailed Jim to call me, telling him I was hurt and angry. “You’ll get over it,” he replied. He never called.

And then I knew: my well-being, my self-respect, my values and identity, were worth more than the big bucks he was paying me. I quit the job with him, and never again worked for anyone who disrespected me. I didn’t get a new client for a while, but I used that time to write a new book – something that gave me joy, that I wouldn’t have had time to do while working for Jim; something I wouldn’t have had the clarity to create while not being my best self.

WHAT IS OUR BOTTOM LINE?

The question for us all is how long we put something else – money, ego, social status – above our own self-respect. When I did work for KPMG years ago, the partners would often work through the night. When colleagues came in the next morning they’d say: “You must have worked all night. You’re wearing the same clothes.” And the groggy guy would proudly say, “Yup!” It was a status thing. They all did it. And almost every one of them was on their second marriage at least, half of them on their third.

I can’t tell you how many folks I’ve trained who secretly share how unhappy they are in their jobs. I did a survey for a large pharmaceutical company recently to find out why they had high numbers of resignations. I interviewed 30 middle managers; many of whom cried during the interview:

“I used to bring them well-conceived and presented ideas and innovative solutions to fix some of the problems. I was given 5 minutes and a Thank You! I did this 3 times before I realized they did nothing with my ideas. I stopped caring. I now come in exactly on time instead of early like I used to, and leave exactly on time, not stay late when I should. If they weren’t paying me so much more than the rest of the industry pays, I would have left long ago. I’m miserable, and certainly not giving them my best self because they don’t want it. I’m happy to say I’m getting good results while job hunting now. I won’t earn as much money, but I’ll have my self-respect.”

I wrote this up in my report to them and offered my own personal viewpoints on steps they could take to address this. Last I heard, they had done nothing with the ideas in the report. The employees continue to quit.

Certainly sometimes it’s imperative to work in bad situations, like those nasty jobs I took while working my way through college, or when I needed money and worked two low-paying jobs to feed my young family.

But I deeply believe, when possible, we must take jobs that maintain our self-respect or we lose the only thing we have: ourselves. (Frankly, I find it appalling that employers don’t respect their employees, don’t cherish their ideas or maintain safe learning environments.)

So Snoop Dogg is my hero. He gets paid for being who he is. May we all do the same.

_________________________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen August 12th, 2024

Posted In: News

Is your team communicating effectively? Do you reach goals on time and without resistance? Are all voices included during brainstorming to assure the full fact pattern is collected that will inspire a set of agreeable possibilities? How are communication breakdowns handled?

I thought of these questions during a recent client chat that prompted me to remember a situation I had with Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico some years back. While the tale is a bit outdated, it will serve as a starting point for my belief that team miscommunication is costly for both productivity and people, and happening more often these days with new-forming teams, remote relationships, and distance meetings.

Here’s my Los Alamos Labs case study that might provide a few thoughts. I’ll follow it with ideas and suggestions.

LOS ALAMOS LABS

Case study

In the 1990s, Los Alamos Labs had a mailroom [Yes! We used snail mail in those days!] that sorted and delivered incoming mail – contracts, client letters, invoices, etc. It took them 6 days (6 days!) to distribute it; leadership wanted it done in one.

After months of failing to shorten the time line, leadership decided to contract out the work and fire the 26-person mailroom team. Before they took that drastic step, they brought me in to see if I could solve the problem with a team-building training program.

Speaking only to the client who hired me (Big mistake, it turned out) I created a nifty program. I arrived at the client site an hour early to observe the team in action before delivering the training. I immediately noticed much larger problems than merely team issues.

To begin with, the racial disparity was glaring: as the company was in New Mexico (a largely Hispanic population), there were 24 Hispanic (LatinX) people and two Anglos (White); it was quite obvious they didn’t speak to or listen to each other. The two Anglos stayed to themselves, never connecting in any way with the other 24 in the hour I watched them.

Next, there were cliques that operated in sort of a ballet, speaking, connecting, moving within their small groups with none of them going outside their cliques for questions, discussions, or sharing. So either their jobs were unique to each person, or there was massive inefficiency.

Didn’t seem like my team building program was an answer. I promptly threw away the program, went into the assigned training room down the hall, and put two facing chairs in the middle of the room with the rest of the chairs in a circle facing the two middle ones.

When the group came in, I told them I noticed some communication issues that I found disturbing, so before we did the real ‘training’ I wanted any personal issues resolved.

I invited whoever was having a personal issue – a grudge, an annoyance, a distrust – to sit in one of the middle chairs and invite their colleague to sit in the other and discuss the problem. I sat on the floor between the two chairs as the interpreter.

Nothing happened for 15 minutes. Silence. Then I stood up and announced I’d sit there all day if need be, but maybe the manager should begin. Surely he was annoyed with someone!

Roberto reluctantly came and sat on one of the chairs and said that instead of sharing his annoyances, he invited anyone annoyed with him to sit across from him and share their feelings.

After a few minutes, a young Hispanic woman came and sat down.

Theresa: I thought so hard about the delivery problems we were having and came up with what I thought was a great idea. But you gave me five minutes and basically didn’t listen. This has happened before when I’ve brought you new ideas. I’ll never bring in any new ideas again. And now we might all get fired because nothing has changed. I tried.

Roberto: I was annoyed too because I thought you were complaining about…

I stopped him so I could translate what she was actually saying:

SD: I heard Theresa say she’s having trust issues because she spent time and care presenting ways to try to resolve the problem and felt you ignored her. As the manager your job is not only to make sure your folks trust you but acquire as many ideas from your team as possible. Try a different response.

Roberto: OK! Um. Theresa: I’m so sorry I didn’t hear you as you deserved to be heard. And I’m sad I’ve not heard your ideas. I’m sure all of your ideas are certainly worth discussing. I sometimes am focused on other issues and don’t listen properly. What can I do to regain your trust? And can we set a time later this week to discuss any ideas you have that might help the group be more efficient?

After Theresa came one of the two Anglo people saying he felt the group had a racial bias against him. (Note: racial bias in New Mexico was a long-term cultural issue that affected everyone. I lived in Taos for 11 years and bear the scars.) Again, Roberto started off defending himself, but with my intervention opened up a race-based dialogue that continued within the group most of the day.

Turned out, most of the team members had grievances they shared. By the time everyone was finished discussing angers, annoyances and biases, it was 11:30 at night.

To their credit, there was great authenticity, honesty, and quite a few tears and hugs. Ideas were shared, brainstormed, listened to by all. When there were misunderstandings people were asked to clarify. Ideas seemed to have wings, flying around the room. Everyone was listening attentively and respectfully. We even had a few laughs (A few in-jokes of course, but mostly I was the ‘butt’ of the jokes for sitting so long on the floor. No idea why I didn’t sit on a chair for god’s sakes!).

On Day Two, I led the newly-formed collaboratory through ideas and plans for better communication, more productivity, sharing, and task efficiency. Within days after our time together they brought the 6-day delivery time down to one day and kept their jobs. Problem solved.

Sample

One more thing: following our program, the team took those 2 chairs and put them outside their manager’s office. Every time there was a confusion or disagreement, the people involved went to the chairs: “Let’s discuss this. Meet you at the chairs at 2:00.” The next year they sent me a photo of all of them next to the chairs. On one of the chairs sat a Malcolm Baldrige Excellence Award. They were holding a banner that said, “THANK YOU SHARON-DREW!”

Ahhhhh. I love my job. Although next time I used that strategy I did sit on a chair. 😊

Take Aways

I’d like to think that the skills involved with the final excellence were ones any team could adopt.

Willingness to be honest and authentic regardless of the ‘politically correct’ rules of social conversation.
Willingness to be vulnerable, admit wrong-doing and apologize.
Willingness to be honest about racial issues and hold Truth above feelings or fears.
Willingness to look at the problem and recognize what was working, what responsibilities they had to take to make it right, and willingness to fix it.
The necessity of the whole team being present as witness and judge, through discomfort and exhaustion. There was no place to hide – everyone knew the truth, and it had to be spoken for the greater good, separate from roles or personalities.
Patience to sit for whatever time it takes to resolve all the issues.

The role I played as translator was also vital. Not only did I provide safety and listen from a Witness (i.e. non-judgmental) place, safety, but it took the sting out of any blame and played a role in a meta understanding, away from unconscious human/racial biases or personal traits. Because I didn’t know any of these folks, I was not tangled in any past relationship, role, or status issues. I suspect that another outsider, from another department maybe, could have done the job. But bringing in a consultant isn’t a bad idea when an impartial eye/ear is needed.

SELF-CORRECTING TEAMS

This team was so comfortable with their long-standing cultural norms that their communication problems were endemic and led to ineffective work habits.

How many companies face the same problem? How many groups just keep on keepin’ on in ignorance or denial, making excuses and playing the blame-game with their resultant failures? How many groups only collect data from a chosen few and omit the entire population that would yield imaginative ideas that conventional leadership seems to ignore? How many important, creative, and valid ideas get ignored because of gender or race or sexual preference issues?

The cost of doing nothing is high:

1. A minimization of good ideas. Client-facing employees are often omitted from company change and problem-solving because they’re not ‘on the leadership team.’ Yet they have great ideas that leadership doesn’t think of. Use these folks. You hired them each for a reason. Put their ideas into action. Your employees are your competitive edge.
2. A minimization of collaboration and job effectiveness. With cliques, lack of diversity, teams bound by job descriptions and hierarchies, there’s no opportunity to pollinate new ideas, try new actions, make new norms. And without these, the company dies from its core.
3. A continuation and exacerbation of problems. Accepted communication practices get factored in to the culture and become built in forever, taking failure along for the ride and causing fall-out to become normative. A well-known global software company I worked with saw no problem with treating staff and clients from a win/lose position. “I need to have control and make people do what I want. I was told to do this on my first day here.” It was endemic. Brought in to get the leadership team to work from integrity, I mentioned that Win/Win was the goal. They were confused when I said Win/Lose equaled Lose/Lose, which cost them trust and creativity and ultimately business. “But what do I need Win/Win for? I’m the one in control. They have to do what I say regardless”. Hmm. How’s that working for you?
4. A colossal time waste. I recently went through a State Tax Review that prompted an enormous overcharging due to a glitch in the system from 1994. There were 6 departments involved, and none of them spoke to the others. If I didn’t call the other 5 when something occurred, I got caught up in the lag between departments, dates, paperwork. By the time we were done we all hated each other. They asked what the rush was, that it usually took 6 months not 6 weeks (I bet!) and I just didn’t understand their system. Nope. I did not. Talk to each other! Make sure there are systems set up so everyone has the same data at the same time. In 2022 that’s simple, no?
5. Unnecessary resistance: Without everyone’s buy-in, without everyone who touches the proposed solution having a say in the outcome, there will be resistance that costs unknown time, money, personal fallout. With proper communication up front, everyone is on board and has a stake in the success of the project. There is absolutely no need for resistance. If you’re getting resistance, you’re doing it wrong.
6. Dimished results. Until or unless
7. the full set of facts are known and gathered from the full spectrum of resources,
8. the full complement of possible ideas are tried,
9. the downsides are factored in before completion,

a project will not be successful. Nothing else to say.

THE TOOLS YOU NEED

Here are the necessary skill sets for effective team communication:

Unbiased Listening. This sounds much easier to do than it is. Let me start by saying that nothing has meaning – no words, no dialogues, no sounds – until our brains translate it. Like the earth has no color – color is a function of the rods and cones in our eyes translating incoming vibrations – words have no meaning until the incoming sound vibrations get translated within our neural circuitry (I wrote a book on this: What? Did you really say what I think I heard?).

In other words, we only understand what someone says according to our existing brain circuits. Listening is a neural/brain thing: we can’t hear others without bias.

For those who are curious, sound enters our ears as vibrations without meaning (i.e. not words!). They become signals that seek out ‘close enough’ circuits already existing in our brains from some prior experience and get translated accordingly.

In other words, everything we hear gets translated by our subjective experience. Sad but true. And we think we listen attentively, but can only hear/understand what our brains listen for. Obviously this is where misunderstanding and miscommunication come from. People DO listen. They just hear what their brains interpret for them according to their historic, subjective beliefs.

The easiest way to fix this problem is to say during a conversation:

I want to make sure I understood what you said. I will say what I think I heard, and ask that you please correct me so I can get it right.

This way you can take away an accurate understanding without guesswork, even if you initially thought what you heard was accurate.

Gather data from every person or you’ll not have the full fact pattern. Too often we gather data from the folks we consider ‘obvious’. not necessarily the full set of stakeholders who are part of the problem and hold some very necessary data.

So many customer service initiatives are developed without the input of the customer facing folks and omit addressing real customer needs. How many times are HR folks omitted because, well, why use HR (except that the initiative will transfer, fire, reorganize people)? Think of everyone who will be touched by the final solution and bring them in at the start.

Ask the right questions. This one is a head scratcher because conventional questions are meant to gather data biased by the needs, language choices, and goals of the Asker and which subsequently gather very restricted data from the Receiver. Obviously, the odds are good that the question will be misinterpreted. So using conventional questions will only discover some percentage of an answer.

To manage this problem, I’ve invented a new form of question (took me 10 years!) I call a Facilitative Question. Different from a conventional question that seeks answers for the Asker, FQs lead Others into their brains to discover a much, much broader set of possibilities beyond the biases of the Asker. After all, retrieving good data is a mind-brain issue. It takes a while to learn to formulate as specific words in specific sequences are used so the brain peruses its unconscious. But once you learn how it changes the arc of all conversations.

Do a congruence check. Are all team members contributing? If not, there’s a reason. Are they feeling unheard, that their ideas aren’t ‘big’ enough? Do they feel powerless? Do they feel any gender, race, or ability bias?

All voices are necessary. Bring them in or you risk restricting all that’s possible, not to mention setting up the initiative for failure and resistance.

Only hold meetings if ALL members are present! Do not hold a meeting if someone is ill or can’t make it. It biases the outcome, causes resistance, and leaves out important ideas.

IS YOUR COMMUNICATION WORKING?

I have some questions for teams to consider:

1. - Is your team is functioning optimally? What would suboptimal communication look/sound/act like?
  - Do you have any vehicle in place to take a meta stance and discover problems without biases or defense?
  - What do you have in place to ensure you’re not operating with any racial, gender, or ability prejudice? It’s inherent and unconscious. How do you test it?
  - Do you regularly get resistance – either from your own team or during client initiatives? What are you willing to do to develop strategies that enable group buy-in from the full set of stakeholders (i.e. including ‘Joe in accounting’)?
  - If you regularly notice dysfunction, during an initiative or with less-than-steller results, what are you doing about it?

I believe this is a problem that needs focus, especially with so much change occurring in our organizations now. Make it a priority. Your productivity, creativity, stability and integrity depend on it. And if you’re seeking a consultant or coach to facilitate your meetings, please contact me at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

____________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen August 5th, 2024

Posted In: Communication

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