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

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.

Sample

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

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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 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.

Sample

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.

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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 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.

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Sharon Drew Morgen August 5th, 2024

Posted In: Communication

Do you need to lose 10 pounds? Are you exercising as much as you need to? What about your eating habits – should you be eating healthier?

I bet there are several things you need to do to be healthier that you’re not doing. Is it because you don’t have a need? Nope. It’s because ‘need’ is not your criteria. It might be a time issue, or a priority issue. You might be in denial. Maybe it’s because you need agreement from a spouse.

Let’s take this thinking to sales. Sales professionals search for folks with a ‘need’ to sell their solution to, yet their closing rates are low. When I began training sales folks in 1987 the close rate was 8%. Now it’s between 4-5%. One of the reasons for the failure is the belief that someone with a need is a prospect. Sellers are seeking out the wrong people.

This focus on ‘need’ was initiated by Dale Carnegie – in 1937. And yes, sadly, much of modern sales is based on the same precepts Carnegie espoused in How to Make Friends and Influence People. Find folks with a need. Establish a relationship. Then sell them what (you think) they need. In 1937, people needed sales folks to help them explain how to resolve problems and they were a respected, necessary profession.

But with the internet providing content and solutions, with global communications now possible so an entire team can be involved with decision making regardless of their location, it’s time for some new thinking. A buying decision is no longer as simple as finding someone with a need: it’s a risk management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. ‘Need’ is not the reason people buy. Risk is.

THE RISK OF CHANGE

The biggest reason folks don’t change or do something different is risk. Unless people fully understand the risk involved with a possible change, or the downsides it might cause to their stability, they will maintain their status quo. After all, it’s been ‘good-enough’ until now.

I’ve spent decades unpacking decision making and change and developing change models for sales, coaching, leadership, and healthcare. What I’ve discovered is change isn’t as simple as merely doing something different. To actually resolve a problem and do something different several things musts occur:

All information about the problem must be gathered and assessed. Unless everyone and everything that’s caused and maintains a problem provides input does it even get defined as a problem.
Once identified as a problem, people try to fix the problem using workarounds or known resources. They do not begin by going ‘outside’ for a fix as that would bring unknowns into the equation and cause unknowable risk.
Only after a workaround proves unworkable are outside fixes considered. But these are also problematic as the risk of using anything outside the system is unknowable. Everyone must gather to assess the risk of fixing the problem with an external resource. If the cost of the fix is deemed higher than maintaining the status quo, the problem will be maintained.

It’s only when it’s understood that the risk of bringing in something new won’t break the system, and there’s buy-in for specific fixes, does everyone agree to look outside for a solution and self-identify as buyers and become prospects.

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The same applies with buyers. People only make a purchase when they understand and can manage their risk of change, regardless of need. No sales person – or coach, or leader – can understand that risk as it’s unique and idiosyncratic to a specific situation. The question then becomes: how can sellers facilitate a buying decision when much of it involves off-line decisions that must be made before people even self-identify as buyers?

WHEN DO PEOPLE BECOME BUYERS?

There are 13 steps in a buying decision; in only the last 4 of them (10-13) do people consider themselves prospects. Before that they’re merely people seeking to solve an internal problem; they can’t even know the extent of their need until they finish assessing the people, change elements, buy-in problems and possibilities, and know their risk of change. Not to mention they start off believing they can solve their own problem and haven’t yet determined they have any need at all. Sadly, even when our solution might obviously serve them, they won’t notice until then.

If you begin by seeking out folks with need you will

pose biased questions to provide you enough content to pose more biased questions that produce biased answers;
listen for a hint that folks ‘need’ your solution so you believe you’ve got a real prospect (hence your pipeline is filled with folks who will never buy);
pitch according to what you think you heard and you think they need, a push strategy which may turn not-ready-to-buy people off – people in their early stages of discovery but who WILL become good prospects once they’ve gone through their steps and understood their risk;
overlook folks who really may become buyers once they’ve traversed their steps of change.

And the time it takes them to figure out their risk is the length of the sales cycle. They will do this with you or without you. Right now they’re doing it without you, and you’re closing only those who have finally figured it out.

But by seeking out people who are already in the process of trying to solve a problem your solution can resolve you can quickly and efficiently facilitate them through to a decision and create trust.

By restricting your prospecting to folks with ‘need’, you’re seeking people who either don’t know they need you (and you must convince them you’re right), don’t recognize a problem at all (and you must convince them you know more than they do), or are in the process of solving their problem and haven’t yet determined their risk (great prospects who haven’t yet self-identified as buyers).

So your choices are: wait (and keep calling, lowering your price, keep them in your pipeline, waste time on them, etc.); or help them figure out their risk (and sales is not involved here).

TIME FOR NEW THINKING

With a known 5% close rate, it’s time for some new thinking. I’ve got a question, and it’s not a simple one to answer: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different processes: the buying decision process on the Buy Side, or the selling process on the Sell Side.

By focusing only on the Sell Side, you either keep prospecting until you find those who have figured out their risk already and self-identify as ‘buyers’ (5%) or keep them in your pipeline, waste a lot of time chasing them, and never close.

I invented Buying Facilitation® (BF) for sellers to find prospects in the process of trying to solve a problem they can resolve – those who WILL buy once they understand their risk – and facilitate them down their 13 steps of change and decision making to the point where they self-identify as buyers. It involves

listening for systems (to avoid the bias in standard questions and to hear the underlying issues conventional listening may not pick up);
use Facilitative Questions (a new form of question I invented that lead people down their steps of change to their decision making criteria with no bias from the Asker);
use Presumptive Summaries (so they recognize what they’re missing in their thinking);
traverse the 13 steps (to ensure people assemble all the right people and search out proper workarounds. It might lead them to possible competitors. But they’d do this anyway. Might as well serve them and engender trust.).

Once people recognize they have a problem, know precisely how to define it, can’t find an easy fix within their sphere, and understand their risk of change, THEN self-identify as buyers and trust you. They won’t buy from anyone else, the process has taken you a quarter of the time a normal prospecting engagement would have taken, and you’ve got a competitive edge.

Seeking out people with a ‘need’ leads to low close rates and a lot of wasted time running after people in your pipeline that either aren’t ready or won’t ever be buyers. The question is: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy. Your choice.

_______________________

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 July 22nd, 2024

Posted In: Change Management

Leaders, consultants, coaches, sales and healthcare professionals often use influencing strategies to lead their patients, teammates, prospects and clients to action. But is there fallout from the influencing strategies? Do they lead to resistance? How do the clients and prospects, the teams and patients, experience being influenced? How often do the strategies themselves cause an irreparable relationship fissure? And is it possible to facilitate permanent change without using influencing strategies?

I recently presented my <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/learning-facilitation” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>new training model</a> (an instructional design that generates new neural circuits in a Learner’s brain to store, understand, and retain the new content) at the Learning Ideas Conference where I met dozens of trainers and instructional designers, all kind folks seeking the best approaches to training. When I asked many of them how their Learners were storing and retaining the new skills, they looked at me blankly. Some shrugged, some were troubled that they hadn’t thought of it. None of them had a clue: they only considered the advocate side.

But it’s not just the training model that only considers one side of the equation: Do docs know how patients are hearing them – or if their suggestions collided against the patient’s beliefs? Do coaches know how clients understand their questions and stories? I’ve trained 100,000 sales professionals and not one of them understood how their buyers buy. Do any professionals know, or consider, how their approaches affect the recipients?

We know how to pitch, tell, prove, advise, inform, teach, enlighten, guilt, align as we work at getting our message heard. But what is occurring on the other side? Is our message perceived as intended? And how do we create messages that will not only be accepted, but be respectful to our clients, teammates and patients?

INFLUENCER VS INFLUENCEE

Many books and programs are dedicated to influencing. But they fail to mention the possible downsides. What happens for the influencEE while we’re influencING? How many clients don’t accurately hear/understand what’s been suggested (a standard problem because brains don’t <a href=”http://didihearyou.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>translate incoming words</a> according to a Speaker’s intended meaning)? Or achieve the opposite results because they convert what they think they’ve heard into reasons to maintain existing habits? Do influencERs know who hears the new ideas as oppositional and set up an immediate resistance to our input? A resistance to our relationship? How many clients do we lose? How many change projects meet resistance? How many patients maintain their problematic behaviors?

Given the failure rates of many professions (90% failure to retain in training; 95% failure to close in sales; 97% failure to adopt to change in healthcare and change management or any <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/behavior-modification-doesnt-modify-behaviors-an-essay-on-why-it-fails-and-what-to-use” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Behavior Mod</a> activity) there’s obviously a problem not being addressed.

In many instances, influencERs believe they’re working from the influencEEs best intentions. Is it possible influencERs are merely trying to get others to do what they want them to do?

Conventional influencing strategies use psychological principles to produce agreement, using tactics to inspire people to change their behaviors (voting or buying or donating or change) according to the needs of the influencER. Here’s Bob Cialdini (author of Influence: the psychology of persuasion) explaining why generating a ‘relationship’ is a successful influencing strategy:
“I describe how individuals who can be convinced that a communicator shares a meaningful personal or social identity with them become remarkably more susceptible to the communicator’s persuasive appeals.” (Robert Cialdini, Comment on This Edition of Influence, pg 5) (Italics mine)
Over the years, psychological principles have emerged to garner compliance. Cialdini says there are seven ways to ‘get in’ to someone’s confidence so they’re willing to comply: reciprocation, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity, commitment, consistency, and unity. He says that by doing these things it’s possible to produce ‘a kind of automatic, mindless compliance…a willingness to say yes without thinking first.” (Robert Cialdini, Comment on This Edition of Influence, pg 7)

It’s a science: by using someone’s ‘trigger features’ and ‘action patterns’ to hack into precise places in the influencEEs brain to prompt – say ‘yes’ to – an action, influencERs work at getting someone to submit to their goal: one person (influencER) attempting to cause another (influencEE) to act according to the influencERs needs.

THE OTHER SIDE

Some influencERs believe their attempts to influence decisions are merited because they’re doing ‘good’. Years ago Stephen Covey (author of the renown Seven Habits of Highly Successful People) hired me to train <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/what-is-buying-facilitation-what-sales-problem-does-it-solve” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Buying Facilitation®</a> to the sales folks at his Leadership Center because he recognized it as an <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/sales-as-a-spiritual-practice-3″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>ethical selling model</a>. His folks were the most manipulative group I’d ever trained. When I asked them if they’d be willing to learn to sell by <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/how-why-and-when-buyers-buy-2″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>facilitating buying</a> instead of manipulating, they said, “But why? We’re entitled to manipulate! We’ve got an important model that everyone needs to learn!”

Do influencERs ever wonder what’s going on with influencEEs? Do they know if there’s fallout to the relationship? Or if trust is affected? Is the downside worth it? Sadly, many influencERs overlook what the influencEE may be experiencing as a result of their persuasion tactics:
<ul>
<li>Distrust</li>
<li>Manipulation</li>
<li>Judgment</li>
<li>Reduced self-esteem</li>
<li>Feeling less-than</li>
<li>Powerlessness</li>
<li>Anger, annoyance, disrespect</li>
<li>Loss of agency</li>
<li>Loss of relationship</li>
</ul>
I realize that some professions – sales, marketing – work with strangers and, sadly, feel they’ve got less of a stake in negative outcomes. But some professions, like coaching, leadership, healthcare, have ongoing relationships with their influencEEs that may be irreparably damaged.

I believe there are better ways to serve clients and patients that don’t involve any form of control and are even more successful.

I’ve been <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>developing and training facilitation models</a> that enable Others to generate their own change based on a Servant Leader model that eschews manipulation and influencing strategies.
<a href=”https://mind-brainconnection.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”><img class=”fusionResponsiveImage aligncenter” src=”https://staticapp.icpsc.com/icp/resources/mogile/193273/dfe67cd4e9ce7d9d4d9e657a3fc42f93.jpeg” alt=”” width=”108″ height=”auto” /></a><a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Sample</a>
Here are the principles I work from:
1. Everyone has their own answer. It will not be the same answer you’ve come up with but it might be close enough to make your solution viable for them AND eschew manipulation. By helping them discover how (not why!) they do what they do and finding it incongruent with their beliefs, by leading them to <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/you-cant-change-a-behavior-by-trying-to-change-a-behavior” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>use their own values</a> and mental models to develop their own new choices, they will change, feel good about themselves, trust you as a facilitator for your guidance, and end up changing, adopting, or buying from you – with integrity.
2. Develop trust. Recognize that your goal may be directly opposed to the Other’s. Spend collaborative time uncovering each other’s goals and negotiating a way forward that is win/win for all.
3. Avoid resistance entirely by collaborating. Are you both working with the same fact pattern? From the same beliefs and goals? What needs to happen to get on the same page toward a goal agreeable to both? What actions do you both agree need to be taken? Resistance is the output of an influencER pushing an agenda that an influencEE hasn’t agreed with.
4. Encourage self-esteem and agency. By facilitating Others through to their own ability to make their own changes, you’re encouraging trust and moving your relationship forward toward loyalty over time. Plus providing them with confidence, and acting with Servant-Leader values.
My win/win <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/how-the-mind-brain-connection-generates-change-and-decision-making” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Change Facilitation</a> model uses a <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/facilitative-questions-questions-that-facilitate-change-with-integrity” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>unique form of question</a> and a <a href=”https://sharon-drew.com/the-13-steps-of-change” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>13 step</a> process mirroring how change happens in the brain to facilitate Others – buyers, teams, coaching clients, patients, teenagers – through to permanent change and good results. By leading Others through their own, personal, steps of belief-based change, they can discover problems they want to fix that they might not have otherwise discovered. So the influencER becomes a real leader without manipulating, seeking compliance, or hacking into Another’s patterns to get your own needs met.

I work with teams, sellers, and coaches to enable permanent, integrity-based change. If you’re seeking to facilitate better results while inspiring folks on your team, your practice, to generate their own solutions, I look forward to speaking. <a href=”mailto:sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com</a>
__________________________
Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor<a href=”https://buyingfacilitation.com/blog/buying-facilitation-new-way-sell-influences-expands-decisions/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”> Buying Facilitation®</a>, listening/communication (<a href=”https://didihearyou.com/read” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>What? Did you really say what I think I heard?</a>), change management (<a href=”https://sharondrewmorgen.com/the-how-of-change/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>The How of Change™</a>), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book <a href=”https://mind-brainconnection.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>HOW?</a><a href=”https://mind-brainconnection.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”> Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making</a>, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and<a href=”https://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”> </a><a href=”https://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell</a>). 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. <a href=”https://www.sharon-drew.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>www.sharon-drew.com</a> She can be reached at <a href=”mailto:sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com</a>.

Sharon Drew Morgen July 15th, 2024

Posted In: Change Management

Gwendolyn by Sharon-Drew Morgen

I live intimately with wildlife on a floating home on the Columbia River in north Portland, OR. During the summer I never know who will show up: Two spitting geese (geese are not nice animals) once happily sat on my two couches, refusing to move; birds regularly fly in and it takes hours to get them out; Henry (the mouse) eats my kiwis; sea lions play in front of my door; river rats occasionally come in, as do neighborhood cats. An entire family of otters lived under my house last year. And for the last two years, swallows have made a nest in the eaves of the house and leave their poo and sick babies (thrown out of the nest) for me to clean up. It’s like living in a marine zoo.

Now, in early July, I’m waiting for my friend Gwendolyn to show up. She usually appears mid-June, and I fear something has happened to her. Gwendolyn, a duck, has come every year for 8 years to lay 10 eggs in my tall planter, the one with the now-recessed plants that have gotten tamped down low after years of her sitting on them.

Gwendolyn is comfortable with me. When I come onto the deck near her she raises up to make sure it’s me before sinking back down onto the clutch. If a stranger is with me, she flies out to attack them.

Every night at 8:00 pm Gwendolyn’s husband (I don’t know his name) comes to take her to dinner. They’re gone for about an hour, during which time I check on the eggs. One year a racoon ate them all, and a very disturbed Gwendolyn swam back and forth in the water near the planter for days. Sadly, she never got to meet her babies. Thankfully it only happened once.

The real joy comes when Gwendolyn’s babies have hatched, she’s gotten them into the water (how she does this from 18 inches down into the planter is a mystery), taught them how to find food and navigate the river, and proudly brings the 7 remaining ones to show me after they’ve grown up. I watch them with pride. My friend Gwendolyn’s babies, all grown up. I feel like their grandmother.

I hope nothing has happened to her. I’m waiting to see her again.

__________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 8th, 2024

Posted In: News

I recently heard a coach pose a Why? question to help his client notice the negative results she achieved, hoping she’d recognize the need to make other choices going forward. Her response merely defended and denied her actions. Why? was the wrong question to lead her to her internal deliberations.

Aside from universal questions, like ‘Why is the sky blue?’, Why? is a common tool used by curious coaches, managers, healthcare providers and parents seeking an explanation for an undesirable behavior; to discover the root cause of something; to find an opening to offer ‘better’ choices.

Whatever the reason, Why? is posed when someone – an Asker – gets triggered by an outcome (something said or done) that runs counter to their expectations. In other words, biased and subjective, likely not getting to the specific neural circuit that caused the queried action.

Due to the way brains listen and how they store information and trigger choice, Why? merely finds a top of mind response, potentially overlooking the specific criteria-based neural synapse (out of 100+ trillion) that triggered it. I’ll explain the process in as simple terms as I can, starting with my definition of a question.

Note: this essay explains how behaviors get triggered in brains, which I’ve been unpacking for decades. For folks not wanting the detail I offer, just note because of the way brains ‘listen’ and how questions are formulated, Why? questions usually do not get to the specific neural circuits where authentic answers are stored.

TEST THE INTENT OF YOUR QUESTION

A question is a group of words chosen, and biased, by an Asker to elicit a response to meet their curiosity, goals and needs.

The problem begins when the Asker assumes Responders will hear/understand/respond to the question as intended (Bad odds). As you’ll see, as per the way brains ‘listen’, there’s a probability the Responder isn’t accurately hearing the intent behind the question. As an Asker do you know:

if the answer you get is accurate? Does the Responder know if it’s accurate?
if there’s a different, or better, answer that might have been uncovered with a differently worded question?
if your choice of words triggered unspoken resistance or unconscious defense?
what you’ll do with the answer you get? How will this response help you or the Responder fix the problem?

When you pose a Why? question, are you aware

you’re using your own curiosity, words, intent, challenges, assumptions and goals, ensuring bias in a question that compares an expected outcome against what actually occurred?
you can’t know how the wording in your query biases the Responder’s answer. And you likely have no idea what the Responder heard you say.
the response obtained is automatic, habitual and mechanical, and doesn’t get to the belief-based root of the problem.
you’ve put the Responder into an automatic, out-of-choice perspective (i.e. a Self reference rather than a more neutral Witness/Coach/Observer viewpoint) where they will automatically defend themselves.

Net net, Askers have no idea how a Responder is hearing them, and Responders have no idea if what they think they’ve heard is accurate. And the Responder’s brain will automatically seek out whatever existing circuitry corresponds to what it translated – not necessarily the circuit that prompted the original action.

But there’s one more piece: standard, and Why?, questions miss an opportunity to lead folks to their real answers or helpful insight. You see, behaviors and actions are triggered by neural circuits that have been assembled from different parts of our brain and body. There is a specific circuit that prompts an action, and since it’s physiological and unconscious, it’s difficult to get to.

Hence, finding the ‘right’ answer is a brain problem: both a brain problem and a word problem with the right type of question, the brain will find the original circuit that caused the action, and, where there’s a problem, notice an incongruence and either find an accurate answer or handle change itself.

IT’S OUR BRAIN’S FAULT – THE SCIENCE OF WHAT WE HEAR

The issues that make Why? questions less than useful originate in our neural circuits. Brains neither listen accurately nor store information logically. Your question

enters (an ear) as a sound vibration that,
after some deletions,
gets turned into electrochemical (meaningless) signals
that get dispatched to a ‘similar-enough’ neural circuit
where the signals undergo more deletions
before they’re translated into meaning – what we think we hear.

The odds of a listener accurately understanding the intent behind incoming words (or puffs of air, as Neuroscience calls them) are slim. Indeed, brains, lazy as they are, send incoming words/vibrations/ signals to the ‘closest’ circuits (superhighways), offering relatively superficial responses as translations.

It becomes pernicious: our lives are ruled by the way our existing neural circuits translate incoming data. All that we hear, see, feel, notice, etc. is converted into meaning via our existing circuits.

In other words, our lives are restricted, i.e. biased, by what’s already in there that represents our histories, mental models, and beliefs. We don’t even notice things around us that have no neural circuitry to translate!

So if a Why? question is posed according to some criteria not recognized by the Responder, there’s no way to get an accurate answer. And sadly, neither the Asker or the Responder can notice what’s missing: when our brain tells us X was said, we have no reason to question it, even though Y was intended. For those interested in understanding more of how brains translate information and generate new circuits, read my book HOW?.

Sample

Since there’s no way to know exactly how a Responder has translated the Asker’s words into meaning, there’s a chance a Responder will interpret the Why? query beyond the intent of the question and won’t recognize a disparity. (Note: see my book WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard?)

Sample

To find an accurate answer to any personal question it’s necessary to discover the neural circuit that holds the underlying criteria that triggered the action. But Why? makes it difficult as it sets up an automatic defense: a standard response often begins with “Because…”

ANOTHER FORM OF QUESTION

Given my lifelong dedication to discovering how to make the unconscious conscious, I spent 10 years developing a question that would reach the specific neural circuit in the brain where the correct answer was stored. My personal query: How could a question be posed that would be devoid of bias and lead a Responder to the specific neural circuit to find their own criteria-based answer? Here are a few of the rules I came up with:

A Responder must have maximum access to as much of their unconscious neural set-up as possible. To do this a question must instigate a Witness/Observer/Coach perspective, outside of their automatic, habituated modality to see a broader view with less bias and less attachment to a specific response.
The wording of the question must capture criteria from several existing neural circuits.
The questions must be posed in specific sequences, following the steps of how brains change and decide.
Questions should avoid an Asker’s needs or curiosity, but enable Responders to find the elements within their neural circuitry that triggered their own behaviors.

In other words, I took the personal curiosity out and added in the elements that lead the Responder’s brain to their criteria-based answers.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS TO REPLACE ‘WHY?’

Ultimately I invented Facilitative Questions that are worded to prompt Responders into Observer modality, lead them down a specific sequence to specific circuits that hold the underlying beliefs and mental models that triggered their queried actions, then down their steps of discovery. So:

How would you know it were time to reconsider your hairstyle? instead of Why do you wear your hair like that?

Great for coaches to lead clients to permanent change, for sellers to lead prospects through their buying decision journey, for healthcare providers to lead patients through to permanent habit change. No bias.

Since Facilitative Questions take a few weeks to learn to formulate – learning them requires

a discovery of several neural circuit,
a knowledge of the different elements of the question and what’s within each segment,
invoking an Observer mindset/perspective with words,
the sequences involved,
an understanding of how brains are set up to receive/trigger output.

In other words, just hearing a few of them will not provide the knowledge to formulate them. Here is a link to a learning accelerator I offer: Or my book HOW? includes a 100 page chapter on Facilitative Questions.

Whichever you choose, consider using Why? questions for everyday things, like Why are we having spaghetti again tonight? To enable decision making, change, habit formation, or to fix a problem, Why? is not your best question.

__________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 1st, 2024

Posted In: Communication, News

We live our lives with continuous stimulation – on-demand access to movies, articles, social media, friends, TikTok, books, games and music. With all possible, all the time, how can we hear ourselves think long enough for new and creative ideas to emerge?

I don’t know about you, but my mental commotion from a week of stress causes interminable noise coming from where my ideas should be. And given I’m a thinker, writer and inventor, hearing myself think is fundamental.

I’ve tried freeing up an hour or two during a week to sit quietly in hopes of hearing my creative voice, but that wasn’t sufficient. I needed a broader time span free of the stimulations involved with daily living. And given my schedule, the only time I had available was weekends.

My solution: weekends of boredom.

I now spend at least two weekends a month alone and off-line – off-line, as in no phone, no (on-line) social activity, no computers, and no email. Hence, weekends of doing nothing. A friend said “I would be bored out of my mind!” Precisely.

Do I like being bored? Not particularly. It’s not necessarily fun: sometimes I’m jumping out of my skin and must force myself to not call a friend. But if I can wait it out, I’m on my way to something unimaginable.

HOW I CREATE BOREDOM AND LISTEN TO MYSELF

Here’s my Idea Generating Action Plan for a weekend: during the week before my empty weekend, I stimulate my mind with gobs of fresh ideas (reading voraciously, listening to interviews of interesting people on NPR, watching documentaries). Early on Saturday and Sunday mornings I walk 3 miles to stimulate my physical side; to recruit my spiritual, juicy, non-intellectual side, I listen to classical music and meditate.

This all sets the stage for my process: Saturdays I go through hell. My brain is jumping all around, remembering things I haven’t finished, people I’m annoyed with, clamoring for me to get to the computer. But I can’t! It’s vital that I feel all my frustrations in order to let them go. Otherwise, there’s nowhere for new thinking to emerge. If it gets really bad I either listen to more music or go for another walk.

By Sunday morning I hear silence and am ready to do nothing. To sit quietly and be bored. I sit. And sit. And walk. And listen to music. And sit. And then, on Sunday afternoon, just before I am ready to exterminate myself, the magic happens. The ideas begin to flow.

New ideas. Surprising ideas. Interesting ideas. Stupid ideas. I don’t judge. I just write them all down. This past weekend I began sketching out an Advanced Listening Coaching program (based on my book What?) to help coaches and leaders hear clients without bias, or assumptions. First thing Monday I connected with two coaching schools who may have interest in collaborating. I’m not always this successful. But sometimes I am. Sometimes I plot out a new course, or draft an article, or come up with new ideas for clients. I never know what’s going to show up. But it’s always something I may not have considered without those empty days.

Sample

SPACES FOR IDEAS TO EMERGE

Boredom as a route to creativity is not for everyone. But I think many of us need something extreme to have the space to listen to ourselves, to have a block of time to clear our brain and silence our Internal Dialogue to enable our unique ideas to emerge. Some folks do this by going for a long run, or swim a mile or two. New ideas do emerge for me at the gym, but the inspirational ones – the hidden ones – come only after space and silence appear.

How do you listen to yourself? What are you listening for when you listen? Do you allow the time and space for an opening that enables emerging ideas? Ask yourself these questions, then ask the big one: What would you need to consider to be willing to take the time to hear yourself without barriers and literally brainstorm with yourself?

Try it. At least once – at least when an important meeting is coming up and you want to shine. Spend a weekend alone somewhere in the countryside, with no texting, no email, no telephone, no TV, no people. Nothin’. Then allow yourself to go a bit crazy. The initial silence might be a relief. But by the time you’re jumping out of your skin, you might end up hearing a very creative voice inside. Maybe not. Maybe you will have wasted a weekend and will email me to tell me I’m nuts. But just maybe, you’ll hear yourself come up with the new, new thing. If you do, you can give me an attribution.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen June 17th, 2024

Posted In: Listening

Super Question Alexa, Siri, Google, AI, and all programs that answer questions have mechanisms that determine the answers. If you’re like me, you largely assume they’re accurate, without knowing the reference material or checking further.

This sort of assumption is a normal reaction: in our daily lives we regularly pose questions to friends, colleagues, and clients about stuff we’re curious about, and receive responses we don’t check for accuracy or congruence.

But what is it, precisely, we’re assuming? I’d like to take a few moments and delve into the larger idea here: Have you ever wondered what a question actually is?

Conventionally, questions are posed to elicit a response, to gather data from a Responder, like “How many children do you have?” or “Why are you doing that?” Parents and spouses sometimes use questions to point out insufficiencies or annoyances, as in “Didn’t you notice the dishes haven’t been done?”

Sometimes we use them rhetorically to demand fairness in the world, like in “Why is this happening to me??” Sometimes questions are posed to elicit a specific response so the Asker can cause the Responder to admit something, like “Don’t you think there are better ways to do that?” Sometimes questions are deemed ‘closed’, like in, “What time is dinner?” Sometimes they’re ‘open’, like in, “What do you want to eat?”

But there is a unifying feature to all standard questions: they’re biased by the needs, words, and goals of the Asker. More specifically, questions:

are posed according to the curiosity, goals, assumptions, and intent of the Asker;
use words that limit responses to narrow interpretation;
get interpreted uniquely, according to a Responder’s historic, unconscious, world views and mental models;
potentially ignore more important and accurate information.

Of course, most of the time, conventional questions work just fine. How else could we find out how many acres there are at Machu Picchu, or which movie our spouse wants to see?

But I believe we are underutilizing questions. I believe it’s possible for questions to serve a higher purpose – to collect accurate data, of course, but also to help others discover their own answers and path to decision making and change.

What if it were possible to use questions to actually lead people through their unconscious discovery process to uncover their own best answers – without any bias from the Asker?

WHAT QUESTIONS DO

There’s a reason questions don’t necessarily unearth accurate data. Using words uniquely chosen to represent the needs and curiosity – the bias – of the Asker, standard questions extract only a portion of the available responses stored unconsciously in a Responder’s brain. Indeed, standard questions can end up being misunderstood or interpreted badly. There are several reasons for this.

1. 1. Information: because information is elicited as per the requirements of the Asker, a Responder’s real answers may not be captured. The wording, the request, the topic, the intent, the underlying assumptions, and/or the vocabulary may unwittingly offend, confuse, or annoy causing partial or inaccurate responses.
  2. Listening: words and meaning are merely our brain’s interpretations of sound waves that enter our ears through our historic neural pathways, guaranteeing we assign meaning according to our unconscious biases and history. Obviously, we might miss the intent of the question entirely. I wrote an entire book on this (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?). Given these natural biases, it’s likely that what we think we’ve heard is some degree different from the Asker’s intent.

Sample

3. Biased question formulation: Askers use words meant to elicit good data for a specific goal and outcome, but may not obtain the best, accurate, or truthful, responses. Sadly, it’s possible that higher quality answers could have been retrieved with a different wording or intent.

4. Restriction: questions restrict answers to the boundaries of the question. We cannot uncover data we never asked for, even if it’s available. We cannot elicit accurate data if the question is heard differently than intended.

Are you getting the point here? Questions have so many in-built biases, get translated as so mysteriously within a Responder’s brain, that it’s a miracle people communicate at all.

This is especially disturbing in coaching, healthcare, and leadership situations. Well-meaning professionals believe the ‘right’ question will uncover a truth from a Responder. Every coach and leader I’ve met deeply believes in their own knack – ‘intuition’ – for posing the ‘right’ question because they have a history of similar situations.

Yet we all have examples where these assumptions have proven false. Sometimes the Influencer doesn’t trust the Other to have the ‘right’ opinions or ideas; sometimes they pose questions that elicit incorrect data, or worded in a way that unwittingly creates resistance.

Sadly, when Responders share answers that prove unhelpful or inaccurate, Influencers blame them for being non-compliant. And worse, patients end up keeping bad habits, clients end up not making needed changes, buyers end up not getting what they need.

A NEW FORM OF QUESTION

As someone who has thought deeply, and written, about the physiology of change and the neurology of decision making for decades, I began pondering this conundrum in the 1980s. I wondered if questions could be posed with no bias, no ego, no personal needs for a particular solution – only the trust that Others had their own answers and merely had to discover them inside themselves.

What if healthcare professionals asked questions that triggered patients to positive, immediate habit change, or coaches knew the exact questions that enabled new habit formation and behavior generation? What if scientists and consultants could elicit the most accurate information? And imagine if it were possible for questions to help sellers and advertisers actually inspire action to generate Buyer Readiness.

What if a question could be worded in a specific way to act as a GPS to lead a Responder through a sequence in their brain to make it possible to discover the full set of criteria to make a decision from and a permanent change without resistance?

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS

I’ve invented a new form of question that addresses the above problems. But before I introduce it I’d like you to consider your own willingness to do go beyond your habitual questioning patterns: What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to add a new skill to your toolkit? Because the hardest bit is to change the mindset of the questioner.

To achieve more consistent, helpful, and permanent results, Askers must begin by changing their criteria from having answers to being facilitators and trust that the Other has their own answers and not assume they possessed the solutions.

I actually thought about this for 10 years as I tried to figure out how words could uncover exactly where in the brain answers reside. I eventually came up with a new form of question I labeled a Facilitative Question. With a goal of helping Others consciously enter their unconscious brains, they use

1. - specific words, in a specific order to go to the most appropriate memory channel to enable discovery without resistance;
  - no bias from an Asker’s curiosity or need;
  - a very specific route to specific memory storage circuits that avoid sparking defense or resistance.

Facilitative Questions (FQs) help Responders uncover their own criteria, beliefs, and mental models to find their own unique answers within their existing neural circuitry – great for permanent behavior change and decision making. With these questions, prospective buyers can be led through change and buying stages; coaching clients can discover their own path to resistance-free change; doctors can elicit behavior change in patients rather than push to try to cause change; and advertisers can trigger interactive responses to normally one-sided push messages.

Conventional questions keep Responders in a very small, idiosyncratic, and personal response range. And while the Asker is most likely attempting to elicit a response, they are out of control. FQs actually define the parameters and give Askers real control.

USES

Here’s a few industries that could benefit from FQs.

1. 1. Healthcare: Intake forms that create an interactive doc/patient experience from the start: What would you need to see from us to know we’re on your team and ready to serve you? [This FQ automatically creates a WE space between patient and provider.] Doctors could lead people to how they’d create new habits for health: What has stopped you from being able to exercise regularly until now? What would you need to know or believe differently to be able to add regular walking to your weekly schedule?
  2. Advertising, for an ad for a Porsche, for example: How would you know when it was time to buy yourself a luxury car? [This FQ makes the ad interactive and gives a reader time to reflect on personal change.]
  3. Sales: What has stopped you until now from resolving your issue using your own resources? [This FQ enables potential buyers to look at how they’ve gone about solving a problem on their own – necessary before realizing they can’t fix the problem themselves and might need to buy something.]
  4. Coaching: What would you need to see or believe differently to be willing to consider new choices in the places where your habitual choices are more limited? [This FQ gives clients an observer viewpoint, thus circumventing blame, to notice old habits/patterns, and limits viewing to the exact historic behaviors that may not be effective.]

These can be used in advertising and marketing campaigns; healthcare apps that sit on top of Behavior Mod apps and facilitate new habit formation; AI where apps or robots need to understand the route to change and decision making. I’ve been teaching it in sales with my Buying Facilitation® model for 40 years and companies such as DuPont teach how to use them with farmers; Senior Partners at KPMG use it with client consulting; Safelight Auto Glass uses it to compete against other distributors; and Kaiser Permanente uses it to engage seniors needed supplemental insurance, to name a few.

If anyone would like to learn the HOW of formulating Facilitative Questions, I developed a primer in a FQ learning accelerator. Or we can work together to develop or test a new initiative. Given how broadly my own clients have used these questions, I’m eager to work with folks who seek to truly serve their client base.

By enabling Others to discover their own unconscious path we not only help them find their own best answers but act as Servant Leaders to decision making.

1. - What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to add a new questioning technique to your already superb questioning skills?
  - How would you know that adding a new skill set would be worth the time/effort/cost to make you – and your clients – even more successful?

Should you wish to add the ability to use questions as a way to truly serve others, let me know.

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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 May 27th, 2024

Posted In: Communication

In the late 1970s, I approached my studies for an MSc in Health Sciences with an idealistic goal to create ways to promote wellness and prevent disease. Although life took me in a different direction, I’ve tried to stay caught up on healthcare.

Recently, I’ve noticed a committed effort in this country to assist the under-served: food services that offer nutritional training as an outpatient service in hospitals and training in healthy eating for patients; outpatient and home support for treatment and prevention for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer sufferers; school lunches and Pre-K programs. I hadn’t been aware of the extent, or creativity, of the outreach of caregiving professionals. We’re on our way to understanding that prevention is preferable to treatment.

The bad news is that some easily treatable or preventable conditions (diabetes, heart conditions, cancer, obesity) are not garnering the necessary buy-in from patients to make the needed healthy choices.

With the best will in the world, providers – intent on designing outreach programs to encourage behavioral change and choice – are facing non-compliance: even with adequate funding, multi-faceted prevention services, and supervised support, patients are resisting and not adopting the necessary changes to generate long term health. What’s going on?

STATUS QUO

The problem is that the methods we’re using to inspire healthful behavior aren’t facilitating compliance. But with a shift in thinking, buy-in is achievable. It’s a belief-changing thing, not a behavior-change thing.

I’ll begin with a brief discussion of change and how we unwittingly fight to remain stable regardless of its (in)effectiveness. Buy-in is a change management problem.

We’re intelligent. We know smoking and sugar are bad, that exercise and fresh veggies are good, yet we continue to smoke and eat processed foods. We know that telling, advising, or offering ‘relevant’ and ‘rational’ information is largely ineffective and invokes resistance, yet we continue to tell, advise, and suggest, knowing that the odds of success are against us and blaming the Other for non-compliance.

When faced with the need to change, we tend to continue our current behaviors with just a few shifts, hoping we’ll get different results (Hello, Einstein.).

The problem is that change is a systems problem that demands buy-in from the very things that created the problem in the first place – much more intricate than knowing there’s a problem.

Let’s look at the problem by understanding why people keep doing what they do. I’ll be discussing this in terms of systems.

For those interested in a deeper discussion, I’ve broken down change and decision making from the brain in my new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change, and decision making.

Sample

OUR STATUS QUO LIKES STABILITY

Each person, each family (everyone, actually), is a system of rules and goals, beliefs and values, history and foundational norms often called our Mental Models our status quo. It represents who we are and the organizing principles that we wake up with every morning; it’s habitual, normalized, accepted, and replicated day after day – including what created the identified problem to begin with – with the problems baked in. Unfortunately our automatic patterns cause us to keep doing what we’ve always done and has become comfortable.

Any proposed change challenges the status quo and invites risk and possible disruption. When a problem shows up, diabetes for example, the patient has a dilemma: either continue their comfortable patterns and be assured of a continued problem, or dismantle the status quo and risk disruption with unknowable consequences.

How does she get up every day if she needs to eat differently and must convince her family that the food they’ve been eating for generations isn’t healthy? How does she avoid dessert when the family is celebrating? And the family’s favorite recipe is her cookies!

Change means the status quo has to reconfigure itself around new/different/unknown rules, beliefs, and outcomes to become something that can maintain itself with the ‘new’ as normalized. Because – and this is important to understand – until people and their unconscious norms

recognize that something is wrong/ineffective,
recognize that whatever they’ve been doing unconsciously has created (and will maintain) the problem,
know how to make congruent change that includes core values and systems norms,
know exactly the level of disruption that will occur to the status quo, and
make a belief shift that is acceptable to the rest of the system and enables new behaviors,

they will not change, regardless of its efficacy of the value of the solution.

In other words, until or unless someone understands their risk of change, AND are willing/able to do the deeply internal work of designing new habits, beliefs, and goals, AND manage any fallout, people will not change regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution.

UNCONSCIOUS PATTERNS HARD TO NOTICE

Why isn’t a rational argument, or an obvious problem, enough to inspire behavior change? Because we’re dealing with long-held and largely unconscious patterns, habits, and normalized activities and beliefs that become part of our neural circuitry. And because we’re trying to push change from the outside – usually through information, advice, and activities – before the system has figured out how to change in the least risky way.

Rational argument is ignored because our unconscious fights to maintain the status quo: we’ve been ‘like this’ for so long and it’s been ‘good enough’ to keep us stable. Change must be agreed to from our deepest norms before being willing to change behaviors. And until then, we can’t even accurately hear incoming data if it runs counter to our beliefs.

THE INTRICACY OF BUY-IN

Change is a belief change issue. By focusing on behavior change before facilitating belief change, we’re putting our status quo at risk. Let’s look at what a behavior is.

Behaviors are merely the expression – the representation, the output – of our beliefs. Think of it this way: behaviors express our beliefs much like the output of a software program is a result of the coding in the programming. To change the output, you don’t start by changing the functionality; you first change the coding which automatically changes the functionality. Like a dummy terminal, our behaviors only represent our internal programming.

WHY PROFESSIONALS DON’T PROMOTE CHANGE

How does this all apply to Healthcare? Our current healthcare system considers providers to be experts with the ‘right’ answers. Providers wrongly believe that if they share, advise, gather, or promote the right information with rational reasons why change is necessary, Others will comply. But our patients and clients

hear us through biased filters and cannot hear our message as meant;
feel pushed to act in ways they’re unaccustomed to or that go against their beliefs;
resist and reject when expected to act in ways outside their norm;
lose trust in us when we push them.

Because of their history, because brains often mistranslate incoming words, because the new may negatively touch their beliefs – for any number of reasons – information ‘in’ without systemic change may not prompt a hoped-for response.

So how can we effect compliance if offering information or diets or exercise programs, for example, isn’t effective?

PEOPLE CAN ONLY CHANGE THEMSELVES

Start by recognizing that people must change themselves. Instead of seeking better and better ways to offer advice (and getting rejected and ignored), we must help people make their own discoveries and systemic changes.

Here are some ways you can enter a change conversation to enable buy-in and avoid resistance:

Shift your goal. Your job is to help Another be all they can be. It’s not about you getting them to accept the change you believe necessary, but enabling them to design the change they need, in a way that concurs with their beliefs and values.
Enter differently. Enter with a goal/outcome of facilitating change and buy-in, not to change behavior. They must change their own behavior. From within. Their own way.
Examine the status quo. First help Others recognize and assemble all of the elements that created and maintain their status quo – not merely the ones involved with the problem as you perceive it, but the entire system that created and maintains it. Outsiders can’t recognize the full complement of givens within another’s status quo. Starting with a focus on what you perceive is the problem (or the Other recognizes as a problem) inspires rejection.
Traverse the brain’s steps to change. There are 13 steps to change that must be traversed for all change to occur. Unless all – all – of the elements have been included, recognize a need to change, and know precisely how to make the appropriate shifts so a stable systems results, they will resist.
Behavior is an expression and not a unique act. We must recognize that exhibited behaviors are expressing beliefs. Change must occur at the belief level. Trying to push or inspire behavior change is at the wrong level and causes resistance.
Everyone has their own answers. They may not be what you would prefer and might not make sense given the outcomes. Help them recognize how and when and if to change. But not using information as it can’t be understood.

Here are some examples of how I’ve added Change Facilitation to elements of health care in a way that promotes belief change first, ideas that might inspire you to think differently:

Intake forms: instead of merely gathering the data you think you need (which you’ve inadvertently biased), why not enlist patient buy-in at the earliest opportunity? It’s possible to add a few Facilitative Questions (I developed a form of question that enables unbiased systemic change and decision making and eschews information gathering. See examples below.) to your forms to start the patient off recognizing you, and including you, as a partner at the very beginning of your relationship and their route to healthful choices:

We are committed to helping you achieve the goals you want to achieve. What would you need to see from us to help you down your path to health? What could we do from our end that would best enable you to make whatever changes you might want to make?

Group prevention/treatment: instead of starting off by sharing new food or exercise plans, let’s add some change management skills to the goals of the group. By giving them direction around facilitating each other’s change issues, you can enable the group to discuss potential fallout to any proposed change, determine what change would look like, and begin discussions on how to approach each aspect of risk together to recognize different paths to success. Then the whole group can support each other’s different paths to success:

As we form this group, what would we all need to believe to incorporate everyone’s needs into our goals? If there are different goals and needs, how do we best support each other to ensure we each achieve our goals?

Doctor/patient communication: instead of a medical person offering ideas or information, make sure you achieve buy-in for change first. This encourages a patient to self-examine their unconscious behaviors while trusting the provider.

It seems you are suffering from diabetes. We’ve got nutritional programs, group support, book recommendations. But I’d first like to help you determine what health means for you. How will you know when it’s time to consider shifting some of your health choices to open up a possibility of treating your diabetes in a way that doesn’t diminish your lifestyle?

A healthy patient, or any desire to change in a way that benefits a more balanced life, is the goal. Be willing to enable change and compliance, rather than attempt to manage it, influence it, or control it. I’ve got some articles on these topics if you wish further reading: Practical Decision Making; Questioning Questions; Trust – what is it and how to initiate it; Resistance to Guidance; Influencers vs Facilitators.

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Sharon Drew Morgen May 6th, 2024

Posted In: Change Management

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Buyers Don’t Buy Based on Need, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

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My friend Gwendolyn

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Boredom: A Route To Creativity

Questions: the new superpower, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Facilitating Compliance: helping patients choose health