Sharon Drew Morgen – Page 9 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

My friend Jack’s boss recently visited his team berating them for the output of their year-long project undertaken at his behest – and then walked out. Feeling disrespected and unmotivated, the team became despondent. As a senior manager Jack was left with the responsibility of re-incentivizing and inspiring the team and getting them back on track. But no one was there to incentivize him. After several such situations he began putting his creative energies into a beloved personal project.

I asked Jack what happened once he’d had a private word with the boss to discuss how his actions impeded the team’s creativity. Nope. No discussion. Jack said it happens all the time and he would have faced rebuke had he mentioned it.

Jack would have been the one censured?? Why would an upper manager wittingly disincentivize the team? Why would an entire culture be willing to disincentivize their employees? Why was disrespect condoned?

I believe that employees are a company’s first customer; why would companies prefer to not serve their employees as respectfully as they served paying customers?

WHY?

No one takes a job thinking they’ll experience verbal abuse that causes

Impeded creativity
Diminished loyalty
Reduced innovation
Anger and resentment
Distrust for management
Disincentive to learn and grow.

Indeed, we spend a large chunk of our lives working; we choose jobs where we can be our happiest, most creative and engaged selves. And yet here is one of the world’s great tech companies systematically mistreating the very people they hired to help them grow and carry their brand as global innovators.

Not only is this morally offensive, it’s profoundly stupid, akin to shooting your sled dogs for an infraction during the Iditarod. Why would you want to damage your lifeline to success?

Of course this isn’t the first company that treats their employees like scrap. But for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would want to disrespect an employee (or anyone, for that matter).

The cost is so high, engendering less innovation, more turnaround and higher hiring/training costs (if anyone even wants to work for them once word gets out), bad press, and unhappy employees that go on to inadvertently treat the company’s customers with less respect as natural fallout. Not to mention they eventually fall behind companies with Servant Leader practices that work on win/win, respect, and integrity.

In the 1980s I set up my tech company so everyone could explore their dreams, ideas, and the excitement of possibility. And except for moving, no employees left during the 5 years I was there. Competitors told me at conferences that they offered to pay my folks double but they wouldn’t leave. “What’s your secret? What are you doing over there?” they’d say.

What I did was pretty simple: I took care of them. I respected them. I removed ‘vacation days’ and told them to take off the time they needed to stay refreshed (I had to make them leave a few times a year – I couldn’t get them to take time off.). As per company policy, everyone took one day off a month to do volunteer work; anyone wanting a newly created leadership role got a 2 week trial run to see if they wanted the job before I hired in a stranger (Most folks went back to their job so they’d have more time with their families.); I took the field techs to a pub monthly to keep connected; I hired a ’make nice guy’ to make sure the outside team had a dedicated person for both technical and client relationship support.

And it was part of the culture to be as creative as they liked so long as they got my help 3 feet before falling over the edge. I remember my surprise (We’re doing WHAT?) when my training director signed a one-year lease for 1,000 sq ft of extra space to create a new set of programs that became so popular we doubled our training business in a year. They even got me to train a management course! I would never have thought of it. My employees were Customer #1 and I trusted their ideas.

CONDONING DISRESPECT? DENIAL?

So it makes no logical sense to me why companies condone disrespect when they depend on their employees for their success. Maybe:

Weak leadership from the top;
Fear of upsetting the status quo;
Denial;
Ego;
A good-enough culture;
Normalization of disrespect among the leaders themselves;
Old-fashioned top-down power dynamics.

There’s just no ‘win’ in it. Years ago I was hired by a franchise owner to visit 11 of his companies around Europe to see what was going on. When I returned with my 75-page report, he had a check ready for me saying the job was done. But given the problems I unearthed, we had loads of work to do. What happened?

Peter: See that pond out there? Before you left the water was sparkling. Since your visits and the questions you posed to the companies, I can’t even see the water anymore. All the junk that was on the bottom is now on top.

SD: And your choice is to clean it up or get rid of me and let it sink back down so it goes back to being hidden.

Peter: Correct. It’s all been working well-enough, and I can’t tolerate what it would take to fix these problems.

SD: You really need to read my report because you’ve got a few serious problems. Paul is methodically stealing all your customers.

Peter: I’m sure it will be fine. I’ve been Paul’s mentor for years. He wouldn’t steal from me.

Six months later he went bankrupt when Paul took the customers. I assume Peter never read the report. Ego. Denial. Status quo. No ‘win’ in it at all.

NO, REALLY. WHY?

For a corporate culture to maintain standards that allow the sort of maltreatment that disincentivizes staff and decreases output, the entire leadership team must buy-in to abuse.

Given that people (employees!) thrive on kindness, respect, and positive attention – my goodness, even our brains experience increased well-being with the raised oxytocin from positive attention – why would a company prefer to continue discouraging the very people they need for success?

No, really. Why?

I’m going to pose some questions here in the hopes that companies make sure they notice and minimize any sort of practices that are less than encouraging, inspirational, supportive, and honest:

How will you know when anyone on the management team is lacking the skills to truly serve their reports in a way that inspires them to thrive? What is going on within the culture that protects managers who are less than respectful or inspirational?
What rules or standards are built into the company culture that give people permission to be less than respectful and supportive?
What is the risk if you create a culture that serves all and makes it undisputable that disrespect is not tolerated? What laws/rules must you put in place to foster respect, collaboration, and true leadership? And how do you encourage buy-in of these laws/rules?
How do you encourage whistleblowers and make sure they get heard without retribution? So folks understand that breaking the rules of respect and integrity will prompt quick dismissal?
How can you make sure that integrity is built into your hiring practices? Into supervisory skills?

I don’t have answers here, folks. I have no place in my brain that would understand why anyone would want to do that to another person, let alone a senior manager with reports he’s dependent on to expand their brand.

For now, let’s just think about the questions and start a conversation. Let me know your thoughts: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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

Sharon Drew Morgen February 28th, 2022

Posted In: News

As influencers we aim to help Others achieve their own brand of excellence, using their own unique values and standards. Sadly, too many of us – coaches, leaders, sellers, consultants, doctors, parents – try to get Others to accede to our viewpoints and suggestions, believing we have information or solutions that offer ‘better’ choices than the ones they’ve made. We’re telling them, net, net, that we’re smarter, that we think our ideas are better than their own.

It’s not our intent, but due to the way we engage with others, and the way brains work, we inadvertently end up restricting possibility and creating resistance, conflict, antagonism, or disregard, regardless of the efficacy of what we have to offer.

In this article I’ll explain how we end up creating the very resistance we prefer to avoid, and introduce new skills to enable us to truly serve.

WE CONNECT THROUGH OUR OWN SUBJECTIVITY

Regardless of the situation, when we try to effect change using our own viewpoint or beliefs (even if they are valid), our unconscious biases and expectations cause us to inadvertently alienate those who might need us. As a result, we ultimately influence only a percentage of those who need our help – those who already basically agree with us.

I’ll explain, below, how we restrict our interactions and then offer new ways to approach influencing to enable others to find their own best solutions:

Biased listening: We each listen to Others unconsciously, through our brain’s unique and subjective filters (biases, triggers, assumptions, habitual neural pathways, memory channels), regardless of our concerted attempts to accurately hear what’s intended. As a result, what we think we hear is often an inaccurate translation of what was meant and not what the speaker intended.

So our Communication Partner (CP) might say ABC but we actually ‘hear’ ABD (And yes, we often hear something quite different than what was said although it shows up as ‘real’. Read my article on how this happens.) and our brains don’t tell us we’re misunderstanding. Unfortunately, it works both ways and Others also wittingly misconstrue what we’ve said.

I wasn’t fully aware of the extent of this until I researched my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? on how to hear others without bias. With the best will in the world we end up only accurately hearing, and thereby responding to, some percentage of the message our CPs intend. It’s outside of our conscious awareness. But it’s possible to remedy by listening with a different part of our brain. More on this later.

Fact #1. We hear Others through our subjective biases, assumptions, triggers, habituated neural pathways, and beliefs, causing us to unintentionally misinterpret the message intended, with no knowledge that what we think we’ve heard is mistaken. Obviously this effects both sides of a communication (i.e. Speakers and Listeners).

Subjective expectations: We enter into each conversation with expectations or goals (conscious or unconscious), often missing avenues of further exploration.

Fact #2. Entering conversations with very specific and self-oriented goals or expectations (conscious or unconscious) unwittingly limits the outcome and full range of possibility, and impedes discovery, data gathering, and creativity.

Restricted curiosity: Curiosity is both triggered and restricted by what we already know, i.e. you can’t ask or be curious about something you have no familiarity with to begin with. Using our own goals to pose questions that are often biased, assumptive, leading, etc. we inadvertently reduce outcomes to the biases we entered the conversation with; our subjective associations, experiences, and internal references restrict our ability to recognize accurate fact patterns during data gathering or analysis.

Fact #3: We enable Others’ excellence, and our own needs for accurate data, to the extent we can overcome our own unconscious biases that restrict the range and focus of our curiosity.

Cognitive dissonance: When the content we share – ideas, information, advice, written material – goes against our CPs conscious or unconscious beliefs, we cause resistance regardless of the efficacy of the information. This is why relevant solutions in sales, marketing, coaching, implementations, doctor’s recommendations etc. often fall on deaf ears. We sometimes unwittingly cause the very resistance we seek to avoid when we attempt to place perfectly good data into someone’s idiosyncratic, habituated belief system that runs different to our own.

Fact #4. Information doesn’t teach Others how to change behaviors; behavior change must first be initiated from beliefs, which in turn initiates buy-in.

Systems congruence: Individuals and groups think, behave, and decide from a habitual system of unconscious beliefs and rules, history and experience, that creates and maintains their status quo. We know from Systems Theory that it’s impossible to change only one piece of a system without effecting the whole. When we attempt to offer suggestions that run counter to the Other’s normalized system, we cause Others to risk incongruence and internal disruption. Hence, resistance.

Unfortunately for those of us trying to effect change in Others, it’s important to remember we’re outsiders: as such, we can never fully comprehend the ramifications of adding our new ideas, especially when every group, every person, believes it’s functioning well and their choices are normalized and habituated.

Just because it seems right to us doesn’t mean it’s right for another. Sometimes maintaining the status quo is the right thing to do for reasons we can’t understand; sometimes change can occur only when internal things need to shift in ways we cannot assist with.

Net net, we pose questions biased by our own need to know, offer information and solutions that we want to be adopted/accepted, and focus on reaching a goal we want to reach, all of which cause resistance: without buy-in and a clear route to manage any fallout from the potential change that a new element would cause (regardless of the outsider’s belief that change is necessary), congruent change can’t occur. When the ‘cost’ of the change is more than the ‘cost’ of the status quo, people will maintain the status quo.

Fact #5: Change cannot happen until there appropriate buy-in from all elements that will be touched by the change and there is a defined route to manage any disruption the change would entail.

Due to our standard questions and listening skills and assumptions that our terrific information will help, we end up helping only those few whose brains are set up to change (the low hanging fruit) and failing with those who might need us but aren’t quite ready.

INFORMATION DOESN’T FACILITATE CHANGE

We can, however, shift from having the answers to helping others achieve their own type of excellence (regardless of whether or not it shows up looking like we envisioned). In other words, we can help our CPs change themselves. Indeed, by thinking we have the answers, by driving our own outcomes, we lose the opportunity to serve, enable real change, and make a difference.

Don’t take the need to maintain the status quo lightly. Even patients who sign up for prevention programs have a history of non-compliance: with new food plans, or recommendations of exercise programs that challenge the behaviors they have habituated and normalized (for good or bad), they don’t know how to remain congruent if they were to change. (Note: as long as healthcare professionals continue to push behavior change rather than facilitate belief change first, non-compliance will continue.)

It’s possible to facilitate the journey through our CPs own hierarchy of values and rules, enable buy-in and agreeable change, and avoid resistance – but not by using conventional information gathering/sharing, or listening practices as they all entail bias that will touch only those with the same biases.

To enable expanded and managed choice and to avoid resistance, we must first help Others recognize how to congruently change their own status quo. They may have buy-in issues or resource issues; maybe their hierarchy of values or goals would need to shift, or their rules.

By focusing on facilitating choice/change first we can teach Others to achieve their own congruent change and then tailor our solutions and presentations to fit. Otherwise, our great content will only connect with those folks who already mirror the incoming data and overlook those who might have been able to change if they had known how to do so congruently.

THE SKILLS OF CHANGE

I’ve developed a generic Change Facilitation model, often used in sales (Buying Facilitation®) and coaching, that offers the ability to facilitate change at the core of where our status quo originates – our internal, idiosyncratic, and habituated rules and beliefs.

Developed over 50 years, I’ve coded my own Asperger’s systemizing brain, refitted some of the constructs of NLP, coded the system and sequence of change, and applied some of the research in brain sciences to determine where, if, and how new choices fit.

Using it, Others can consciously self-cue – normally an unconscious process – to enable them to discover their own needs for change in the area I can serve, and in a way that’s congruent with the rules and beliefs that keep their status quo in place.

I’ve trained the model globally over the past 30 years in sales, negotiation, marketing, patient relationships, leadership, coaching, etc. Below I introduce the main skills I’ve developed to enable change and choice – for me, the real kindness and integrity we have to offer.

It’s possible to lead Others through

an examination of their unconscious beliefs and established systems
to discover blocks, incongruences, and endemic obstructions
to examine how, if, why, when they might need to change, and then
help them set up the steps and means (tactically) to make those changes
in a way that avoids system’s dysfunction
with buy-in, consensus, and no resistance.

For those interested in learning more, I’m happy to chat, train, and share. Or feel free to use my thoughts to inspire your own model.

Listening for Systems: from birth we’re taught to carefully listen for content and try to understand the Other’s meaning (exemplified by Active Listening) which, because of our listening filters, often misses the underlying, unspoken Metamessage the speaker intends. By teaching the brain to disassociate and listen broadly rather than specifically, Systems Listening enables hearing the intended message at the root of the message being sent and supersedes all bias on either end. For those interested, read my article on how our listening restricts our worlds.

Facilitative Questions: conventional questions, used to gather data, are biased by the Speaker and interpreted in a biased way by the Responder. The intent of Facilitative Questions (FQ) is to lead listeners through a sequential discovery process through their own (often unconscious) status quo; not information focused and not biased, they are directive, and enable our CPs to discover for themselves the full range of elements they must address to achieve excellence. Here is a simple (out of sequence) example of the differences between conventional questions and FQs. Note how the FQ teaches the Other how to think:

Conventional Question: Why do you wear your hair like that? This question, meant to extract data for the Speaker’s use, is biased by the Speaker and limits choices within the Responder. Bias/Bias
Facilitative Question: How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle? While conventional questions ask/pull biased data, this question sequentially leads the Other through focused scans of unconscious beliefs in the status quo. Formulating them requires Listening for Systems.

Using specific words, in a specific order, to stimulate specific thought categories, FQs lead Others down their steps of congruent change, with no bias. Now we can be part of the process with them much earlier and use our desire to influence change to positive effect. We can actually help Others help themselves.

Steps of change: There is a habituated, idiosyncratic hierarchy of people, rules, values, systems, and history within each status quo. By helping our CPs navigate down their hierarchy they can discover and manage each point necessary to change without disruption or resistance. Until they know how to do this – and note, as outsiders we can NEVER understand this – they can take no action as their habitual functioning (their status quo) is at risk. Offering them our information is the final thing they’ll need when all of the change elements are recognized.

To me, being kind, ethical and true servants, being influencers who can make a difference, means helping Others be all they can be THEIR way, not OUR way. As true servant leaders and change agents we can facilitate real, lasting change and then, when Others know how to change congruently, our important solutions will be heard.

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Sharon Drew Morgen February 21st, 2022

Posted In: Communication, Listening

I hate unrequested ‘feedback’. Personally, when I want to better myself, I seek feedback from folks whose opinions I trust. But sometimes, when I do something that annoys someone else, they take it upon themselves to offer me ‘feedback’ to tell me what I did ‘wrong,’ too often based on beliefs we don’t share.

Given we could all benefit from positive feedback once in a while, I would like to propose ways to offer respectful feedback as part of a servant-leader model.

I’ll begin with a story. I recently shared an annoyance with a group of friends and was quite surprised to be met with silence. I did get one helpful comment afterwards:

“If the time comes you ever want to learn how to get the group’s attention in a way that they can hear and respond, I’d be happy to offer suggestions. I’ve been a member of the group for a long time and they have a certain pattern to their sharing. I’m here if you need me.”

To me, that’s great feedback. Gives me information and choice, not to mention a great resource to learn from; no blame, no insult, no assumptions, no bias. And he trusted me to discover my own timing for learning. Win/Win/Win.

SOMEONE IS MADE WRONG

These days it seems acceptable for one person (the Giver) to tell another (the Receiver) how to improve when acting in a manner deemed ‘unacceptable’ to the Giver. Indeed, books on feedback explain how Receivers can ‘overcome’ their ‘lack of perspective’ – obviously a biased, insulting judgment that assumes

the Giver is right (and the Receiver wrong),
the Giver has the moral entitlement to judge the Receiver,
the Giver’s viewpoint is accurate (and the Receiver should heed it),
the Giver has THE answer (based on his/her idiosyncratic beliefs),
the Giver uses the best verbiage to be understood accurately, without incurring resistance or hurt,
there is no bias involved,
the Receiver doesn’t have the tools, skills, or understanding to do what’s ‘right’ on their own.

Everyone has the right to speak their mind of course. But I don’t know anyone who welcomes what might be spurious comments based on Another’s biases.

The idea of someone telling Another that they have a problem and the Giver has THE answer, assumes it’s ok for the Giver to use their own biases to try to convince the Receiver they’re wrong and they need to change. And that is well outside of my personal, moral beliefs.

I’m aware that often a boss needs to help an employee make adjustments, or a parent needs to modify a teenager’s unsuccessful choices. But the baseline remains the same: No one has the right to proclaim a moral high ground, to expect anyone else to change because of personal feelings, biases, and assumptions, to assume the Receiver has no say, no unique judgment, no relevant thought process that could become part of an agreeable solution.

TWO MINDS BETTER THAN ONE

Of course, because nobody is perfect (although we each think we are), we sometimes need a reality check. For those times, there’s a way Givers can create feedback that will enable win/win conversations and excellence. Here are several issues that must be overcome:

BIAS: The assumption that feedback is needed is often based on a Giver wanting a Receiver to change as per the Giver’s unique beliefs and values. Sure, if there is a danger involved, a Receiver must ultimately choose new behaviors. But in general, when a Giver assumes the ‘right’ road without identifying a path to partnership, or recognizing there might be a specific reason the Receiver made their choices, any discussion becomes win/lose.

WRONG ASSUMPTIONS: Too often a Giver’s feedback assumes the Receiver is wrong, or doesn’t possess the skills or tools to do it better, and goes forth pushing their own agendas. With these assumptions, any feedback will most likely be ignored, especially if it offends, insults, or in some way harms the Receiver. This certainly doesn’t set in motion a path to positive behavior modification.

RIGHT VS WRONG: What makes one person right and one person wrong? Just asking. While it might be clear in the Giver’s mind, it’s often up for interpretation.

WRONG LANGUAGING: How does the Giver know for certain that their approach to instigate change is the best approach? My book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? discusses how brains misunderstand, mistranslate, and misinterpret incoming information based on the listener’s mental models and brain synapses – nothing whatsoever to do with the facts or content coming in. Unfortunately, we all assume our speech is ‘easily understandable’ and others should hear what we mean. Nope.

ME VS YOU: Why should I listen to you, or make changes in my normal behavior patterns, when I don’t agree with you and you make no sense to me?

WHO’S OUTCOME IS IT?: Sometimes the Giver is working from different, hidden, or unconscious outcomes. Why would the ‘offender’ heed the feedback if s/he is meeting her own outcomes? And how can a Giver understand differences between them with a goal or bias that restricts the ability to listen or be flexible enough to go through discovery together?

Are you getting the point here? Feedback is biased; people are all doing the best they can do at any given moment; the only people who will be compliant are those who are already on the same page (and those folks don’t usually need feedback) or those fearful of consequences. And fear is a poor motivator.

WHAT TO DO

Before you offer feedback, consider the distance between what someone is doing/saying vs what you believe should be done/said. Is it merely an opinion they should do something different, or will it actually resolve a problem? Is there a way to mutually discover a solution to accomplish this without causing fear, distrust, and annoyance?

When a problem occurs that needs to be fixed, a collaborative discussion will enable the Receiver to discover their own route to change.

1. Enter the conversation with curiosity:

I noticed X was occurring and find it problematic (for the job, for our relationship, for the outcome). Would you be willing to discuss it with me to figure out if there is actually a problem or there’s another way to look at the situation?

2. Be prepared to drop biases, expectations, needs, and opinions and clearly state intentions. There’s no place in a collaborative communication for any offense:

I find I’m having reactions to what happened, but come with an openness to finding the best route to excellence. If you feel like I’m being biased or disrespectful, I’d like to hear your thoughts so we end up on the same page with the same goal. It’s not my intent to disparage you in any way. I just want to find the best way to both feel comfortable going forward.

3. Tell your side of what you feel about the incident, without further commentary, and clearly state your need for the conversation:

When X happened, it seemed to me your reaction caused [a bigger problem/unexpected fallout, etc.] and it scared me. I wonder if we could discuss both our needs and assumptions and see if there is a path to end up with something we can both live with and neither of us considered.

4. Listen without bias. Make sure you repeat what you think you heard as it’s quite possible your brain might have misinterpreted what was said:

Let me see if I heard you accurately. I heard you say X. Did I get that right? Or am I misunderstanding something? Please correct my interpretation. I want us to be on the same page.

5. Discuss your needs in relation to what you heard, and begin creating a plan:

Sounds like you and I have similar outcomes but different ways of expressing it. That’s what I had the problem with, but now see your choices were just different from mine. What do you think about doing X as a middle path? I think that might meet the goals. What do you think? Do you have any other ideas to suggest?

6. Put it all together:

I think we’ve reached a route that we’ll both benefit from. Is there anything you need from me going forward to make sure we collaborate through to excellence?

I recognize there are times when the Giver is a boss, a parent, a leader needing specific results. But if there’s no collaboration, if there’s bias about right and wrong, if there’s no way to hear each other, neither Giver or Receiver can be the driver toward excellence. Use feedback as a route to excellence.

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Sharon Drew Morgen February 14th, 2022

Posted In: News

During the three years I spent researching and writing a book on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I learned how ubiquitous listening challenges are: we have a hard time understanding each other.

It’s not because we don’t try, or because we don’t care. It’s because we can’t. Our historic personal experiences, mental models, and cultures makes it almost impossible to accurately hear others outside of our own ingrained biases, assumptions, and triggers. Of course we want to, and we certainly try. But our brains actually keep us from translating another’s words accurately.

OUR BRAIN CIRCUITS INTERPRET FOR US

Here’s the deal: our brains won’t let us listen without bias. With our restricting viewpoints and hot-buttons, histories and assumptions we communicate using the only baseline we have – our world views. This causes us to pose biased questions and make faulty assumptions, overlooking the possibility that our Communication Partner (CP) may not have similar references and can’t translate our messages accurately. For some reason, we all assume that using the same words implies we’re defining them the same way. But that’s not true at all.

Unfortunately, our brain causes the problem. It translates what’s been said into what’s comfortable or habitual for us regardless of how different the translation might be from the speaker’s intent.

Here’s what happens: Words enter our brains as meaningless vibrations (literally puffs of air) and get sent to synapses and circuits that are close-enough miracles. When there is any type of mismatch, our brain doesn’t realize it has misunderstood, or mistranslated the Speaker’s intent and actually discards the difference between what was said and how our unconsciously selected circuits interpret it! As a result, we might actually hear ABL when our CP said ABC and we have no reason to think what we we’ve ‘heard’ is faulty.

I lost a partnership this way. During a conversation, John got annoyed at something he thought I said. I tried to correct him:

“That’s not what I said.” I told him.

“I know what I heard! Don’t try to get away with anything here!

“But I didn’t say that at all!”

“John, I was sitting right here. She’s right. She never said that,” said his wife.

“You’re both lying!!! I’m outta here!!” And he stomped out of the room, ending our partnership.

It’s pernicious: our brains select a translation for us, reducing whole conversations and categories of people to caricature and subjective assumption. The resulting misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and flawed presumptions cause communication and relationship problems throughout our working and personal lives.

But to distinguish what’s meant from what we think we hear, to experience what others want to convey when it’s out of our experience, we must recognize the error, and make a concerted effort to connect. This begins with asking:

Did I hear you accurately? I’d like to repeat what I think I heard, and please tell me if it’s accurate or correct me. Thanks.

The next step is to make sure there is common ground. And here is where it gets tricky: how is common ground possible when folks are from different cultures and backgrounds? How is collaboration and mutual understanding possible, especially with folks outside of our normal personal or professional tribes?

HOW TO DO HOW

We need a way forward to find common ground to listen to each other and come to consensus with action steps to help us all heal. I’m going to offer some steps for us to dialogue and reach win/win consensus. But first I’ll offer a few foundational truths:

Everyone’s experience and history is valid, unique, and guides their choices.
Others cannot see or feel what you see or feel.
Everyone has a right to the same basics: health, a living wage, good work, safety for our families, education.
All change, including adopting new ideas, is threatening to the status quo and will cause resistance unless there is buy-in at the level of beliefs.

We must

recognize common beliefs and values we can buy-in to without impairing our individual values,
feel safe in conversations when it feels like we’re speaking with enemies,
override our resistance and biases to find common intentions, compassion and outcomes,
be able to hear another’s intended message without overlaying our biases, assumptions, and habits.

I’ve put together a few action steps to begin to dialogue with those we’ve historically sat in opposition to. I also recommend that our conversations must work toward win/win. I call this a We Space.

Get agreement for a dialogue: It’s likely that you and your CP have different goals and life experiences. Begin by agreeing to have a conversation to do nothing more than find common ground.

“I’d like to have a dialogue that might lead to us to an agreeable route forward that meets both of our goals. If you agree, do you have thoughts on where you’d like to begin?”
“I wonder if we can find common goals so we might possibly find some agreement to work from. I’m happy to share my goals with you; I’d like to hear yours as well. ”

Set the frame for common values: We all have similar foundational values, hopes and fears – they’re just different. Start by ‘chunking up’ to find agreement.

“I’d like to find a way to communicate that might help us find a common values so we can begin determining if there are places we can agree. Any thoughts on how you’d like to proceed?”
“It seems we’re in opposite mind-sets. What might be a comfortable way forward for us to discover if there is any agreement at all we can start from?”

Enter without bias: With limiting beliefs or hidden agendas, there’s no way to find commonality. Replace emotions and blame with a new bias, just for this conversation: the ‘bias’ of collaboration.

“I’m willing to find common ground and put aside my normal reactions for this hour but it will be a challenge since I’m so angry. Do you want to share your difficulty in this area, or are you ok with it and can help me? How do we move forward without bias?”

Get into Observer: In case you have difficulty overcoming your biases and filters, here’s a physiological ‘How-To’ that comes straight from NLP: in your mind’s eye, see yourself up on the ceiling, looking down on yourself and your CP. It will virtually remove you from the fray, and offer an unbiased view of your interaction – one step removed as it were. One way to do this is to walk around during the conversation, or sit way, way back in a chair. Sitting forward keeps you in your biases. (Chapter 6 in What? teaches how to do this.)

Notice body language/words: Your CP is speaking/listening from beliefs, values, history, feelings, exhibited in their body language and eye contact. From your ceiling perch, notice how their physical stance matches their words, the level of passion, feelings, and emotion. Now look down and notice how you look and sound in relation to your CP. Just notice. Read Carol Goman’s excellent book on the subject.

Notice triggers: The words emphasized by your CP hold their beliefs and biases. They usually appear at the very beginning or end of a sentence. You may also hear absolutes: Always, Never; lots of You’s may be the vocabulary of blame. Silence, folded arms, a stick-straight torso may show distrust. Just notice where/when it happens and don’t take it personally – it’s not personal. Don’t forget to notice your own triggers, or blame/victim words of your own. If their words trigger you into your own subjective viewpoints, get yourself back into Observer; you’ll have choice from the ceiling. But just in case:

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

Summarize regularly: Because the odds are bad that you’ll actually hear what your CP means to convey, it’s necessary to summarize what you hear after every exchange:

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

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

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

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

“Seems to me like we’re on the same page here. I think we’re both saying X. Is that true? What am I missing?”
“What should I add to my thinking that I’m avoiding or not understanding the same way you are? Is there a way you want me to experience what it looks like from your shoes that I don’t currently know how to experience? Can you help me understand?”

Check your gut: Notice when/if your stomach gets tight, or your throat hurts. These are sure signs that your beliefs are being stepped on. If that happens, make sure you get back up to the ceiling, and then tell your CP:

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

Get agreement on the topics in the conversation: One step at a time; make sure you both agree to each item, and skip the ones (for now) where there’s no agreement. Put them in a Parking Lot for your next conversation.

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

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

Until or unless we all hold the belief that none of us matter if some of us don’t; until or unless we’re all willing to take the responsibility of each needless death or killing; until or unless we’re each willing to put aside our very real grievances to seek a higher good, we’ll never heal. It’s not easy. But by learning how to hear each other with compassion and empathy, our conversations can begin. We must be willing to start sharing our Truth and our hearts. It’s the only real start we can make.

___________

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 February 7th, 2022

Posted In: Listening, Sales

As someone with Asperger’s, I’ve always experienced the world from a different set of rules than those used by ‘normal’ people (neurotypicals (NTs)). Occasionally I get in trouble, even with friends. I remember once my neighbors Gus and Randy came over to watch TV and brought an ugly (ugly!!), cheap glass ashtray as a ‘visit’ gift – a gift to watch TV? The next day I brought it back.

SD: I’m never going to use this, and I hate it. Maybe give it to someone who will appreciate it.

Gus: (Laughter) You’re returning a gift!?

Randy: (Silence. Anger. Annoyance.)

SD: Randy, are you mad at me because I returned this? Do you want me to keep it? You seem to be mad at me. I don’t understand why.

Randy: (Silence. Silence. Silence.)

Gus: Oh, come on, Randy! It’s a cheap ashtray! We can use it as a Secret Santa gift.

Randy: (Staring at me with intense eyes. Silence. Staring.) WHO DOES THAT!!!!

SD: I do.

Because I experience the world so differently, I often neglect assumed, and apparently innate, conventional social rules. For survival, I developed others that make more sense to me. The good news is that using my own atypical rules and reasoning, I’ve spent my life resolving curiosities about choice and decision making that didn’t seem to have answers in standard thinking and yet make a difference.

With my atypical brain, I’ve invented values-based systemic brain change models (used in sales, decision making, leadership, habit formation, behavior change) that I’ve trained world-wide and have written several books on.

The bad news is that because my ideas have no precedent, the path to adoption is challenging. And yet, I’ve mostly figured it out.

In this article I offer what I’ve learned to help those troublemakers out there with great ideas that go against convention. After all, without troublemakers nothing changes.

RIGHT RULES DON’T CAUSE INNOVATION

At the start, I’d like to say that my innate rules aren’t wrong, they just operate from a different mindset than the perceived wisdom, enabling me to create out-of-the-box concepts. I don’t even realize they’re outside the box until I get pushback.

Eventually, the right people show up with curiosity and excitement. Once I was training my change model with a graphic on systemic brain change that took me 3 months to figure out. A woman raised her hand. “Where did you get that graphic? I’m a neuroscientist and that part is missing from the field. Where did you get it! Can I use it?” Music to my ears.

I’ve always known my ideas are to be shared and used by others. But how could I disseminate them when such a high percent of a reading audience uses more traditional thinking? To learn how, I had to learn the principles of ‘normal’ discourse and expectations. I had already learned that using my own unique communication process, the ideas got rejected out of hand.

Early on I recognized I had to show up as ‘normal’ if I wanted to share new thinking. When I was 11 I began taking notes of normal conversations; eventually I noticed patterns that offered new rules I could teach myself. I had to learn basics, stuff most two-year-olds know, like saying ‘Fine, thanks, how are you?’ when asked ‘How are you?’ To this day I don’t understand why that’s a valid response.

By now, and armed with probably half a million rules in my brain, I show up as NT most of the time, albeit a bit ‘charming’. I still get people annoyed when I over-share or interrupt even when I announce at the beginning of a conversation that I’m an Aspie.

But I’ve learned some rules that helped me share my models and innovate change.

10 RULES FOR INNOVATORS

To start, because my ideas are different from the perceived wisdom, folks who seek convention are initially opposed and I get ignored, or worse. But I’ve learned it’s just what happens to folks who break the rules. Rule #1: don’t expect to fit in. Be willing to be overlooked or ignored.

Over time, I’ve figured out who to share new ideas with; mainstream isn’t the place for me to start. Certainly, early adopters are more curious, accepting, and less judgmental.

So that brings up a few questions: who do I share my ideas with so they’ll garner acceptance and adoption? How much am I willing to dumb down a new concept to help it be understood? Should I just seek folks who easily understand? Am I targeting the right audience? How can I test my message so I don’t frustrate those who might understand with just a bit of help? Rule #2: choose who to share the ideas with.

I always work hard to understand the rules in a particular environment so I’ll have an idea which ones I’m breaking. It makes it easier to know where rejection will come from: if I don’t know where I’m at, I can’t get where I’m going (I’ve got a bunch of fun one-liners in Morgenisms you can enjoy.). But given I’m offering wholly new thinking, I understand I may first be ignored, made wrong, or not believed. Indeed, according to the norms, I AM ‘wrong’! Rule #3: don’t take it personally, it’s part of the process.

It’s important for me to know if an idea is worth spending time on. For the times I have a ‘wonderment’ (like in, “Hmmm. I wonder why people can’t hear each other accurately?” which was the start of my book on how to listen without bias), I’ve created a trigger to alert my brain to a circuit I’ve labeled ‘Wonderment’ where I have unfettered curiosity. Once I find myself immersed in questions, and in the middle of confusion, I know I’m on the right track. Rule #4: choose ideas that seem endlessly stimulating and you’re willing to devote a lot of time and energy on.

Frustration, curiosity, dead ends… during my process everything changes, even when it takes years; there are no ready answers and limitless places to look for new ones. I don’t even know all the questions to pose until I’m finished. So I keep stimulating my brain for just a smidge of a thought, a slice of a wonderment.

I make sure new inspirations flow in: Books. Podcasts. Plays. Hiking. I stay away from talking heads with conventional ideas that promise if you do X you’ll be successful. I just read a book on how New York City sanitation trucks get scheduled! I read ezines on topics I have no knowledge of. I travel to unusual places with unknowable rules to learn new patterns: I’ve spent a week with the Shuar Indians living in a mud hut with creepy things crawling up the walls (Pretty, but ewwww). I’ve spent a week in Uruguay living on a sheep farm failing badly at training a Border Collie.

I never know when new ideas will emerge but keep my brain stimulated to spark them. Rule #5: be infinitely flexible.

Time to think is crucial. I schedule specific hours every week to do nothing but think. I keep 20 pads of paper and pens scattered around the house to catch idea. I collect them at the end of the week to see what I’ve got. I never know what will work or what new ideas will go with what. So I try and try, fail and fail, scribble, and fail, and try, and…. Until one Eureeka moment when I know I’ve got it, when all feels settled. Rule #6: make ‘thinking’ a tool of your profession and devote specific time for it.

Get your brain in shape as if you were an athlete. I get plenty of sleep, no longer drink (sometimes a beer on a Saturday) because it muddles my brain. I remove drama as much as possible. I work out (walk 2 miles a day, one hour of weights in the gym 2x/week) and eat really healthy. With no exercise and bad food, I get logy. Rule #7: get yourself in brain-shape so you have the clarity necessary to innovate.

Mistakes are wonderful things. I make loads. And sometimes I revamp something that took me months or years to design. You must be ok with getting it wrong often. If you’re a perfectionist or need to be ‘right’ all the time, breaking rules and developing new ideas isn’t for you.

But each failure, each error, each dead end, eventually opens a path to an answer. There’s a lot of passion, self-trust, and self-discipline involved. I just have to keep going even when it’s a mess, when I’m confused, when it seems all wrong and going nowhere. After all, if there were a place I could learn it, it wouldn’t be anything new. So I’ve learned to trust the process.

It took me 10 years to create a new form of question. I began with wondering how it was possible to get into my brain to find stuff when I kept thinking just one way and I knew there were others. Eventually I developed Facilitative Questions that enable brains to discover where their best answers are stored. I’ve taught these to about 100,000 people! Rule: #8: be humble; failure and confusion are part of the process.

For me, I get impaled with an idea that I cannot shake and it rumbles around my brain every waking moment, even in my dreams. When you’re new at this, be stubborn: don’t acquiesce to the thoughts of Others who tell you you’re doing something impossible, or you’re wrong. You ARE! Get over it and keep going. Rule 9: be stubborn; being wrong is right.

The persistent problem is how to message the new ideas so they’re accepted. Left to my own devices, I can explain a concept in a sentence or two. But no one would understand me, so I’ve learned to incorporate industry idioms, styles of speech, regularly used phrases, and accepted knowledge.

The biggest challenge is inspiring curiosity instead of rejection. It’s a brain thing: incoming sounds (including words) get translated into meaning only when they’ve been sent through habitual, unconscious brain circuits (neuroscience books call words ‘puffs of air’). So people automatically think according to their historic assumptions.

The trick is to help trigger folks from an assumption to a curiosity. Some people automatically become curious when an incoming idea seems confusing; most people ignore it or reject it out of hand when it goes against a belief.

We’re never told that information, in and of itself, doesn’t cause new thinking unless it’s being sought (i.e. there’s a place in the brain waiting for that specific data); unless I get my ducks in a row and choose the right message to the right people and generate new brain circuits, I’m wasting my breath.

So how can you initiate curiosity so your new ideas get accepted? Just because you’ve got a great idea doesn’t mean it will be heard or accepted. But you must figure it out. Rule #10: Try several approaches to sharing new ideas, including questions, storytelling, personal examples, initiating sharing to understand Another’s thought process; develop outreach to fit the messaging to the audience.

So it’s a process. A very humbling process.

GETTING NEW IDEAS HEARD

What would you need to know or believe differently to begin your own wonderment program? To believe that your ideas are worth disseminating? That you can make a difference?

With so much change occurring – in business, technology, media, management, climate change, etc. – we’re all going through shifts in thinking and are open to change. It’s the perfect time to break rules and develop new models, new ways of working and thinking and communicating.

Obviously with your new ideas in hand, you must get them accepted and disseminated. So how? Do you want to make a difference in your personal sphere – for yourself or your family? Do you want to make a difference in the world? In your company?

The big hurdle to get over is how to help Others understand you; they have no brain circuits to translate your ideas. What will you figure out to resolve this problem?

It’s the problem all innovators and inventors must solve. Tesla never figured it out. Neither did Cezanne. Did you know he only sold one painting during his life – to Matisse who wanted to learn from him? Did you know it took 40 years for broad adoption of the telephone after it was invented? People continued using Morse Code to communicate! And remember how long it took folks to believe the world was round? Had nothing to do with the science, or truth.

It’s a complex issue. To break the rules in a way they’ll be adopted, you must not only change your own beliefs but facilitate others in changing theirs. Without belief change new ideas aren’t accepted. To break rules, you’ll need to help folks supersede their comfortable, automatic beliefs and message the new in a way that doesn’t offend.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he didn’t explain the engineering or coding; he used a huge screen with visuals, showing each component and simply showing the functionality of that component. Suddenly those things you secretly wanted were at your fingertips and had a name. He used what you already knew and believed and took it to the next logical step.

Breaking the rules to generate new innovations is a dark and lonely road. But it’s possible, and it’s necessary. The question is: are you willing to make a difference?

____________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen January 31st, 2022

Posted In: News

It’s time for a rant. After decades of writing books and articles explaining why we close such a small percentage of prospects and how, exactly, to facilitate the Buy Side to close much more, I’m going to say what I really think.

I’ll begin with my surprise: why do sales and marketing largely ignore the change management component of the Buy Side even in the face of very low (<5%) close rates? That the 95+% of prospects NOT buying (even in the face of the massive efforts) indicates that a focus on need or solution/product placement is imperfect? That maybe pitching/pushing content is the wrong strategy? My goodness, you wouldn’t even go to a hairdresser with a 95+% failure rate, let alone get on a plane or go to a doctor. Isn’t it clear that something is wrong?

DO YOU WANT TO SELL OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

For me the answer is obvious: both sales and marketing ignore the path folks take to become buyers and overlook a group of highly probable prospects who actually need support handling their unique change management issues. Because they’re not buyers yet, you’ve overlooked them. But you’re ignoring a huge opportunity to serve, differentiate yourself, and close more.

Here’s my question: Do you want to sell? Or help someone buy? Your answer is obvious: ‘I want to sell and I don’t care whether anyone buys.’ That’s what you’re doing! Selling, even though such a small percentage are buying! It’s the wrong answer. If you really wanted people to buy you’d be doing something different.

Both marketing and sales ignore the Buy Side, focusing on solution placement/product sale, while restricting the purchasing audience to those relative few – the low hanging fruit – who finally show up. And making a purchase is the very last thing people do. Before then, they’re merely people trying to figure out their best route to solving a problem.

People don’t want to buy anything, merely solve a problem at the least cost to the system. And until they understand the ‘cost to the system’ (how their culture and norms will be affected) they can’t buy. They don’t even recognize a ‘need’ until then. They certainly aren’t seeking an external solution; nor do they consider themselves buyers! Hence they pay no heed to your selling or marketing content. And yet you persist on doing the same thing even in the face of failure.

It’s possible to recognize folks who WILL be buyers on the first call, then facilitate them efficiently through their Pre-Sales (i.e. Pre-Buying) change management steps. But not with the current solution placement/product sale model.

Sales and marketing were designed to sell solutions. But sticking to the historic solution placement/product sale focus, they ignore the real Pre-Sales buying decision journey folks take first and overlook the possibility finding folks who will soon be buyers but don’t self-identify as such yet.

Sales and marketing overlook the much larger group of folks on route to becoming buyers but not ready yet, focusing instead on anyone – anyone with a name that shows up somewhere, anyone who will sit still long enough to read or listen, anyone who has any semblance of a ‘need’ as per a biased interpretation. Anyone.

FACILITATE BUYING BEFORE TRYING TO SELL

Sales can begin by recognizing, finding, and leading people through their team– and culture-based detection and buy-in activities; marketing can use change-focused content to guide folks through their unfamiliar steps of change. All it takes is a focus on facilitating change – the necessary steps involved with ‘buying’ – as the first activity rather than beginning with selling. And by ‘facilitating buying’ I mean the process of change, nothing product-purchase related.

By overlooking the change folks must take before identifying as buyers, you’re limiting your audience to those relative few who completed their internal decisions and have their ducks in a row; you’re missing a huge opportunity to beat your competition and be a change facilitator – a role folks really, really need you – as one aspect of your sales and marketing strategy.

With a shift in perspective to first find folks seeking change in your area of expertise and facilitating their necessary change management Pre-Sales Change Path BEFORE trying to sell, you’ll find folks very early in their decision journey (before they even recognize they might be buyers) and use your new change management thinking to help them figure out what they need to figure out. Then more will be ready to buy, and buy quicker.

Here’s an example of two responses to a Facilitative Question I posed to begin a prospecting call. Notice that they both have ‘need’ but only one is a real prospect [Hint: the willingness to change is the identifier.]:

SD: How are you and your decision team adding new sales skills to their already successful strategies, for those times you’re seeking to shorten sales cycles?

Response #1: every year I read 6 popular sales books. I choose my favorite, buy 1500 copies for the teams, then have the managers discuss one chapter a month. I’ve been doing it for years and my folks love it.

SD: Sounds like you are happy with your strategy.

#1: Love it.

Response #2: every year I offer some type of sales training. But I must be doing something wrong – it doesn’t seem to help and our close rates and the sales cycles don’t seem to change much.

SD: sounds frustrating.

#2. It has been. But I don’t despair. I keep seeking a way to fix this problem. Shouldn’t be so hard.

Both #1 and #2 need to learn my Buying Facilitation® model. But only #2 is actively seeking change and actually bought my training 2 weeks later. When starting by seeking folks on route to change (instead of seeking those with need), you’ll find people with a good chance of becoming buyers once they’re ready.

SALES IS AN OUTDATED MODEL

When designed 100 years ago, sales and marketing only needed a reliable product, a charming personality (Have you ever met a seller who wasn’t charming?) and folks with a need. Easy. Even buyers had an easier time: with a simple buying process, far fewer solution choices, and fewer bits and pieces to organize, buying involved maybe two or three available solutions; marketing content provided data they couldn’t get anywhere else; sales reps were a necessary and accepted part of a buying decision.

Times have changed but neither sales nor marketing have changed with them. Close rates have gone from 8% when I began selling in 1979 to well under 5% now (closer to 3% if tracked from first call). When I told someone recently that the sales model closed less than 5%, he disagreed:

F: We’re closing 15%

SD: Starting from where?

F: Starting from a visit! (Question: how many not-yet-ready-buyers did he get ‘nos’ from as he attempted to get an appointment?)

SD: How many would you close if you started counting when you get a name?

F: Less than 2%.

Isn’t this an indication that something is wrong? That you must do something different? A <5% close rate is 95+% failure! And yet it’s called success! But what if you said, “Hmmmm. Such a small percentage close rate is failure, especially after all that effort and outreach. What are we missing here?”

With fewer people needing your help to make a purchase, more folks involved in a buying decision, and more people buying online, why are you using the same process, the same thinking, you’ve always used? With a blank slate and all possibilities available, even the new apps continue the same failed thinking!

With technology to organize a seller’s time, grab names from unpredictable searches, cause company names to come up in search engines, push out content, combined with the separation of the technology into cost centers that hide the real cost of a sale, the only people making money are the groups selling these new technologies to salespeople!

It’s time to consider first finding folks on route to change and facilitating their non-buying change management process before trying to sell.

DOING THE SAME THING IS INSANITY

The continued belief that with the ‘right’ content/message, the ‘right’ technology, the concept ‘if you find them they’ll buy’ is a foundational flaw.

Think with me here: You’re spending more and more money to find more and more names and spending more and more time on folks not even real prospects. The hope, the promise – that once people notice you, appreciate your solution, believe they need your solution, and trust/like you, they’ll buy – is moot. There are several issues involved;

The focus on solution placement/product sale, and finding folks with ‘need’, misses the real opportunity:

the unique process each person/group people goes through before becoming buyers;
when, why, how people become buyers (Seriously. I’ve trained 100,000 sales folks and not one – not one! – knows their market’s Pre-Sales buying decision/change management process!);
the role of change in the buying process;
the possibility of finding folks on route to becoming buyers on the first call;
how to facilitate folks through their preliminary non-solution change decisions;
how to use marketing to progress the buying decision path.

By restricting sales and marketing to solution placement/product sale, the real process people go through on route to becoming buyers has been overlooked. Think about it for a moment. If you want to convince your spouse to buy a 2-seater $350,000 Lamborghini, would you want them to sit down with a decision facilitator or a Lamborghini sales rep?

What would you need to believe differently to begin your sales/marketing outreach with a change management criteria?

The industry presuppositions as to targeting ‘buyers’ are specious:

Please read the remainder of the article here.

For a printout of the entire article, click here.

________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen January 17th, 2022

Posted In: News

What, exactly, is the job of a manager these days? With folks now working between office and home, meetings with people in different venues, one third of all adults suffering from depression, and work-life imbalance from our new work situations, our jobs as managers need an upgrade.

Until now, a manager’s job was akin to the job of a Chief of Staff where people, tasks, timelines, and outputs were determined by the company culture. Now the culture must address both emotional issues and leadership coming from within instead of top-down.

Managing is no longer as simple as being a good leader; it now holds the key to a company’s success and strategy. Certainly a factor in inspiring creativity and supporting well-being.

Are you noticing any issues showing up for any of your staff? Do folks need support coping with health issues? Emotional crises? Work-life balance? Are they doing the same level work they did pre pandemic? Are they as creative? Reliable? Happy?

I suspect there might be subtle differences showing up given the havoc we’ve been through. Here are a few ideas to help.

SKILLS TO SERVE

Given the new givens, folks might be a bit off balance. Here are a few ideas to help you serve them:

Enhanced listening

Because work has generally been a ‘doing’ place not a ‘being’ place, folks may gloss over what’s going on for them personally. But that doesn’t mean you should. How do you include the personal? Should there be separate meetings for those with work-life balance issues? For folks dealing with depression? What is the best approach to personal sharing so the group can serve each other and still do the business at hand?

Folks can seem ‘fine’ – put on a happy face, tell the Zoom group all is well – but listening with an unbiased ear will highlight the unspoken stuff, notice differences between their normal communication patterns and disparities showing up now.

But listening without bias is easier said than done; our brains weren’t set up to hear what someone actually means. When writing my book on how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (WHAT?) I discovered an alarming fact: we have little chance of accurately understanding what’s said to us!

It seems all sounds (including words) enter our ears as meaningless vibrations, or ‘puffs of air’ as they’re called in science books. Through a series of very fast (five one-hundreds of a second) electro-chemical calculations in our heads, these vibrations eventually get translated into meaning according to ‘similar enough’ historic, automatic brain circuits that we’ve uniquely created during our lives and represent our mental models. Obviously, there’s a chance they might not be ‘similar-enough’ to the intended message!

And it gets worse: our brains discard some of the incoming signals that don’t match the existing ones! So I might say ABC and your brain tells you I said ABL – it never tells you it deleted D, E, F, etc. – and your brain never tells you the difference!

In other words, if there are no circuits to accurately translate what someone is saying to you, it’s possible that you may not be understanding the message according to their intent.

Put it all together and what you think was said is some percentage different from the intended message. Use my Listening Assessment to monitor your own patterns.

Meaning aside, it’s possible to hear differences between someone’s historic communication patterns and current ones. Physiologically, there might be an edge in their voice, shorter words used, a lower tone, distracted communication. To make sure you get it right, check with them: “I think I hear you say X/I think I’m noticing Y. Is that accurate?”

Here are guidelines to consider:

Notice differences – differences in voice, tone, volume; differences in content sharing. Does the person seem distracted? Quieter/more talkative than normal?
Listen for how the group handles personal issues. Is it open to adding the personal? How will you address this going forward?
Are some folks hearing more accurately? How will you intervene if you hear biases?
When something important is said, make sure to say: “I want to tell you what I heard to make sure I’ve got it right. Please correct me where I got it wrong.”

Once the team is alerted to listen for differences, set up norms going forward to help those in need. Ignoring is not an option.

Group process

How’s the group doing? When they’re in different settings are they working together effectively? Anything obvious showing up? Differences in working relationships? Is work being done efficiently? Are there communication issues? Is creativity at the same level it’s always been? Is the personal accepted? How will you handle those in the group who stick to tasks and ignore the personal?

Set up a discovery meeting. Here are a few questions to pose:

How can we be most efficient when not all folks in the same place?
How can we make sure all information is available to everyone? (Hint: this is bigger than merely sending out emails. Sometimes ‘water cooler’ chatter is important and omitted from the group discussions. How can you compensate for this?)
How do we ensure that everyone has what they need for each meeting, each initiative? That all information – personal and professional – is shared so everyone is working from the same data set?
How do we include personal issues in our meetings? Does the agenda change? Is there a time set aside?
How can we make sure everyone who should be involved is involved? Or share necessary data that only two people have discussed?
How can we discover fallout before it becomes a problem?

Until everyone who should be involved is in the meeting, no action can go forward congruently; no ideas or strategies can be complete.

I suggest meetings be rescheduled if someone can’t make it – their unique voice, feelings, creativity and observations are necessary. Without doing this, plans end up needing to be reconfigured; egos might be bruised and relationships compromised; good ideas will go unspoken. Meetings must include the full stakeholder team or there will be glitches, resistance, or non-compliance going forward.

Information Gathering/Idea Generation

Given people may not be in the same room, or they’re distracted as per their time/health/childcare issues, getting information collected and brainstormed might be untidy. But it’s important everyone is on board and buys in to actions and goals.

How will meetings be led and advanced? Will one person always do it? Will there be a rotation?
Who sets the meeting agendas? Can anyone add to them?
Who will supervise the collection of data, drive initiatives, follow up?
How will the group know when it’s collected the full data set, when there is buy-in for a new idea, when all ideas have been considered?

Managers have done a lot of this work, but with folks dispersed and communication potentially compromised, with leadership, strategy and new ideas coming from the teams, it might make sense to update old meeting styles.

Supervision

Must people be in person to be supervised? There has been a prevailing belief that face-to-face is best. But there might not be a choice now. How will you manage this? I suggest you sit down with each report and figure it out together:

What is the best way for me to supervise you now? What type of flexibility do I need to best serve you?
What should I be looking for in case you’re going through a bad patch and don’t notice you need some support?
What would my support look like for you? What would I be doing, saying, not saying, offering, to help?
Is there anyone on the team who might have your back if there’s a work promise you can’t complete on time?

Your job is to serve your folks. Figuring out what this looks like must be collaborative.

Peer Coaching

Since you’re not always around, but folks on teams often connect with each other, set up peer coaching so everyone has a buddy and someplace to go if they need extra support. Especially in these times when emotions might be present, it’s important to set up ways for folks who know each other to serve each other.

It’s time for new skills to serve, new ways to think. The job of the manager now is a pivotal one: help get our folks through this confusion we face. Success and excellence depend on it.

I’m a fervent believer that people have their own answers when they’re going through stuff. Even if they tell us of a problem, we can’t know all the issues involved or how, specifically, the person is really coping. But we can help them find their answers so long as we stay away from trying to resolve them.

If your company seeks any support to help your managers recognize and learn new skills, I’d love to help. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen January 10th, 2022

Posted In: News

Imagine starting work each day at 7:45 with a 15 minute meditation and working until 3. At your 7-8 pm nightly zoom meeting the team shares new ideas, discusses problems, and sets agendas for upcoming work; follow-on meetings occur at 8-9pm. Your workspace has a corkboard to put up whatever items keep you happy and creative. All memos use She or They pronouns exclusively. Besides vacations, you’re given a week off each year, with full pay and costs covered to take any course in the US that will keep you creative.

Your manager (as are most managers and corporate leaders in your company) is a woman. All salaries and bonuses are published online for transparency. For the annual super bonus, you develop a new product (with a pitch statement explaining how to make money AND make nice) to fit within the decision team’s (all women) criteria around physical, mental, and emotional intelligence. You will trial the idea to your boss during your monthly check-in where she asks about your work-life balance and to make sure you’re doing well. All communication practices are built around win/win, both/and, and Servant Leader thinking. And for help solving problems, you can access the company coach.

In case you haven’t guessed, this might be how a woman-run workplace operates, although women would certainly make sure of an equal ratio of women to men. The hours are set around school hours, with after-dinner time devoted to unfinished work. And sharing feelings, ideas, creativity, happiness, are part of your job. How different work would be.

WHAT WE LOSE

Hundreds of books have been written on the inequities that women suffer in the United States. (The most inclusive and fact-filled is: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men ). But let’s take a peek at just one industry – the notedly woman-blind tech industry – and see how women fare.

In 2020 $5.1 Billion was raised in venture money by women; men received $58 Billion. In the 1990s, 2% of women got funded. I bet

more than that tried to raise money for really good ideas;
women’s ideas are at least as revenue-producing as men’s;
our internet, keyboards, search tools, websites, games, and apps would be different if created with designs and ideas with 50% involvement from women.

Virtually all technology has been designed and funded by men.

THE 51% MINORITY

In general, women are minimally present in innovation and leadership regardless of the industry. Women receive 10% of the funding (up from 2% in 1996. Um, yay?), far fewer management positions, less pay (Lower salaried women get equal pay; the higher the position, the more discrepancy between women’s remuneration and men’s.). We get underestimated, patronized, overlooked, undervalued, isolated and our ideas get ignored (or taken over to great fanfare by men); we’re kept off creative teams if we’re even hired at all.

We’re certainly left out of upper-management positions and Boards, invisible and not mentored, even as corporations claim to work toward having sustainable and diverse workplaces. Yes, it’s ‘getting better.’ But still nowhere close to equal.

And do you realize that everything you read uses a male (he) pronoun as standard? In my books I alternate pronouns in odd/even chapters. Invariably I get asked why I only use the feminine pronoun; readers don’t even notice the male pronoun used in half the book. Imagine if all books, all articles, were written with only ‘she’.

With proof of excellence, with the knowledge that at least half of all spending dollars are spent by women, with the knowledge that women are better managers and provide better results all around, what’s the problem?

Hmmm. Oh. I know. We have vaginas.

How is it possible that a body part can cause such unfairness and stupidity, such a constraint on creativity and innovation and possibility? The problem is obviously long-standing and systemic – built right into the system.

It touches everyone. A colleague of mine is a trans woman who transitioned in her 50s after she had already achieved great status and pay as a man. She says that once she became a woman she was given less opportunities, less respect, and the possibility of less pay (She put up a helluva fight.) Same person. Same brain. Different genitals. It makes no sense at all.

According to statistics, men working in women-led companies (or teams) are over 50% happier and bring in far more revenue. Google states (bold from Google):

“Female-led organizations are more profitable, perform better, and have higher profit margins compared to male-led companies. …these economic benefits translate into profits of up to $1.8 billion globally” and “Companies with more women in management and board positions outperformed their more male-led counterparts.”

And the Boston Globe writes:

“Women — and men — report higher job satisfaction at women-led companies. Companies where women make up more than half the executive team scored higher in key areas: more confident in their employers’ overall goals and strategies; more effective communication and the mission more clearly defined, leading to a greater belief in the company’s product or service; and more autonomy.”

We know this. Really we do. So why aren’t we acting as if we do?

WHERE DO GOOD IDEAS GO IF YOU’RE A WOMAN?

I’ve had to contend with this my entire work life. As a woman inventor, my original thinking is too far outside the box – certainly too far outside mainstream – and sometimes defy conventional givens. But instead of excitement, curiosity, respect or consideration, my concepts are largely ignored or not believed and I’m denigrated. I just heard an erstwhile male colleague say I was ‘One of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. But so irritating!’

And I get overlooked. When Harvard Business Review did a double edition on ‘The Future of Sales’ years ago, I was excluded. Why? As the inventor of Buying Facilitation®, the only new, wholly unique selling model in 100 years, it was quite a surprise, especially when the editor was a think tank colleague! I called him:

SD: Hey, Tom. Nice Job. But since I have the only future-based selling model, and you are familiar with my work, how did you leave me out? You included Dale Carnegie which is 90 years old, not the future, and no longer being used. Why couldn’t you at least have given Buying Facilitation® a mention somewhere?

TS: I thought of it, Sharon-Drew. But you didn’t have the credentials.

Um. Let’s see: New York Times Business Bestseller (Selling with Integrity) with six other books and over 500 published articles on the subject; trained 100,000 sales people globally for many Fortune 500 companies with an average of a 600% increase over sales. What credentials am I missing?

The problem first reared its head in 1996. Years before Google, with a new World Wide Web that had no search capability, I developed a search tool that efficiently facilitated site visitors to the exact page(s) they needed. Then, in the Dot Com era where even Joe the Plumber was raising millions, I sought funding. I was offered $15,000,000 by the one woman VC in Silicon Valley IF I could find another million from someone else.

You know where this is going: In an era where investors were hungry for ideas, eager to give away millions to just about anyone who provided a sliver of hope that they could be part of the action, I couldn’t find $1,000,000 from a male investor for a pretty cool idea that was at least worth trialing. I’m going to make a guess that my being a woman had something to do with it.

CASE STUDY OF A WOMAN INVENTOR – MY STORY

As an example of one, I’d like to share my story and ideas. Maybe you’ll also wonder what might have been if I were male.

With a distinct mental vision of brain connections, a visceral insight into systems, accompanied by decades of study with available data, I’ve spent my life designing ways to consciously cause change – the HOW to enable everyone to discover or create their own best answers by generating neural circuits. With the intent to serve Others to discover their own excellence, with the trust that everyone has their own answers, I build a bridge between spirit and business.

Ultimately I design systemic brain change models, ways to consciously (re)configure the brain to

discover where best answers are stored/how to retrieve them,
develop new circuits that generate wholly new habits and behaviors,
listen without bias,
learn without resistance,
change and decide consciously using the specific steps and sequence all brains take.

My models include:

Buying Facilitation® – Helps sellers lead not-quite-yet buyers through Pre-Sales change management steps so 40% more become buyers in half the time.
Change Facilitation – Enables intentional creation of new neural circuitry for permanent habit/behavior change.
Leadership Facilitation – Leads Others to discover their values-based choices in a resistance-free change management initiative.
Facilitative Questions – A new form of question that pulls unconscious criteria, in a specific sequence, from the right places in the brain for efficient and accurate criteria-based decision making.
Thirteen Steps to Change – The specific steps all change takes for decision making and resistance-free transformation.
The Decider – An app for sales, deal rooms, sites, team decision making, to direct each step, phase, criteria, and consideration to an efficient decision.
Learning Facilitation – Facilitates learning by providing neural circuits a path for permanent learning without resistance.

Profound ideas and innovative capabilities for healthcare, sales, leadership, coaching, decision making, change, training, and management. They’ve made their way into the world. Sort of. Stolen in part by men (A recent new ‘partner’ advertised my newest idea (Buying Enablement) as his own, relegating me to ‘trainer.’), the ideas have been minimized (misunderstood, misdefined) to fit mainstream thinking causing me to watch my own ideas, now defined almost beyond recognition, compete with me. At a think tank recently, I discussed my ideas with a Harvard neuroscience who firmly stated that I was obviously a liar as my ideas weren’t possible.

But it doesn’t stop at ‘liar’. I’m seen as: pushy (translation for a man with similar behaviors: A Go Getter!); obnoxious (He’s Got Such An Interesting Personality!); arrogant (He’s So Confident!); eccentric (Great Ideas! Soooo Outside The Box!); without merit due to inadequate education (His Ideas Are Profound! And Self Taught Too! He’s A Genius!) and irritating (She’s So Much Smarter Than Me!).

And yet I wake up every day with hope – hope that at least some of the concepts will be used to enable folks to truly serve one another, for people to consciously change habits permanently, for leaders to enable change without resistance, for doctors to facilitate folks to healthier lifestyle choices, for sellers to facilitate people through change.

Is it possible if I were a man they’d be endemic by now?

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

What needs to happen for helpful, useful, innovative ideas to be shared and distributed regardless of the gender of the creator? I certainly don’t have answers. But I can offer some questions for us all to noodle:

What would you need to believe differently to deeply consider the efficacy of ‘different’ ideas regardless of the sex of the innovator?
What’s stopped you from using your voice in your company to advocate for more female hires, more women on the Board, and equal pay for women?
How many women on your team are heard, backed, and mentored up the leadership chain? And what is stopping you – personally – from doing your part to boost women in management?
How would you know if you have unconscious biases that either ignore, avoid, or disparage ideas from women?

It’s time, folks. It’s time to use all the brain power, the heart capacity, the creativity and innovation available, regardless of genitalia. What are you willing to do to help make it happen?

______________________

Sharon Drew Morgen December 6th, 2021

Posted In: Change Management

I got to the gym yesterday only to find that my regular treadmill had been replaced by a new-fangled computer machine. I asked the young woman next to me how to start the damn thing as it wasn’t obvious. Here was the conversation:

SDM: Where’s the start button on this thing?
Woman: Over there. You’ll want to start on 2.3 miles and…
SDM: Thanks for showing me. I’m good now. Thanks.
Woman: You’re starting too high! Plus, you’ll want to put it at an incline of 1% to start, then …
SDM: No. Really. I’m good.
Woman: I’m telling you the right way to do this! I’m a professional trainer! I know what I’m talking about!
SDM: I’m sure you do. But I’m good. Thanks.
Woman: What’s your problem, lady??? You asked me for my advice! I’m just responding to your question! I’M A PROFESSIONAL!

That woman converted my simple request into a request for her expertise and she couldn’t hear my attempt to disengage from the conversation – three times! But we all do this sort of thing. And it’s our brain’s fault.

BIASES

Far too often, we interpret what someone says with the filters of what we’re listening for and end up limiting the scope of what’s possible. We actually inadvertently restrict our listening in most conversations as our unconscious biases filter out what doesn’t match. Let me introduce you to some of the more common ones out of the hundreds of recognized biases:

Confirmation bias: we listen to get personal validation, often using leading questions, to confirm to ourselves that we’re right; we seek out people and ideas to confirm our own views and maintain our status quo, and unwittingly mistranslate what’s been said according to our beliefs.

Expectation bias: we decide what we want to take away from a conversation prior to entering, causing us to only notice the bits that match and disregarding the rest; we mishear and misinterpret what’s said to conform to our goals.

Status quo bias: we listen to confirm that we’re fine the way we are and reject any information that proves us wrong.

Attention bias: we unconsciously ignore what we don’t want to hear – and often don’t even hear, or acknowledge, something has been said.

Information bias: we only gather the information we’ve deemed ‘important’ to push our own agendas or prove a point. When used for data analysis, we often collect information according to expectation bias and selection bias. (This biases scientific and social research, and data analysis.)

And of course, we all have a Bias Blind Spot: we naturally believe we’re not biased! And anyone that doesn’t believe we’re Right is Wrong.

OUR BRAINS BIAS AUTONOMOUSLY

When researching my book on how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I discovered that our brains only allow us to understand a fraction of what others mean to convey (Note: the fraction depends on familiarity, triggers, history, beliefs, etc.).

Here’s what happens: Sound enters our ears as puffs of air (literally!) that get turned into signals that then seek out similar-enough circuits that will translate the incoming signals as per the content already there (i.e. subjective, biased, restricted to what we already know).

The bad news is that where the incoming signals don’t match the old circuits, our brains discard what doesn’t match – and doesn’t tell us what it has discarded! And we’re left ‘hearing’ what our brains tell us – some fraction of what was said! So the woman in the opening story actually heard me ask her for advice.

I believe our success is regulated by our listening biases and our ability – or not – to recognize when/if our biases are getting in the way (I wrote a chapter in What? that offers a skill set on how to do this). Certainly our creativity and opportunities, our choices of jobs, mates, friends, etc. are restricted. The natural biasing we do is compounded by the tricks our brains play with memory and habit, making the probability of factual interpretation pretty slim.

If we can avoid the trap of assuming what we think has been said is accurate, and assume that some portion of what we think we heard might contain some bias, we could take more responsibility for our conversations.

At the end of each conversation, we’d check in with our Communication Partner and get accuracy agreement.
Whenever we hear something that sounds like an agreement or a plan, we’d stop the conversation to check that what we think we heard is accurate.
At the end of meetings, we’d check in that our takeaway plans and their outcomes are agreeable.
When we hear something ‘different’ we won’t assume the other person wrong, but consider the possibility that we are the ones who heard it wrong.

Knowing the difference between what we think others are saying vs what they actually mean to convey takes on great importance in meetings, coaching calls, negotiations, doctors, and information collection for decision analysts.

Let’s get rid of our egos. Let’s put our need to collaborate, pursue win/win communication, and authentic Servant Leadership into all our communication. Otherwise, we’re merely finding situations that maintain our status quo. And we lose the opportunity to be better, stronger, kinder, and more creative.

________

Sharon Drew Morgen October 25th, 2021

Posted In: Listening, News

What if

you could find real prospects early in their Buying Journey?
you could discover non-buyers immediately while leading real prospects efficiently through their Buy Side steps?
none of this involves sales, product details, need, or pitch?

How can you promote buying without “sales, product details, need, or pitch”? I believe that by relying on these concepts exclusively you close less sales than you deserve given your efforts and the quality of your solution.

I suggest that by adding new thinking and tools that facilitate and enable buying from the Buy Side – wholly different from Sales Enablement that facilitates the Sell Side – you’ll not only find people on route to becoming buyers, but you can help them be ready to close. Let me explain.

SELL SIDE VS BUY SIDE

All current technology in Sales Enablement, marketing, and ABM is biased toward the Sell Side with a focus on finding, enabling, and engaging folks with an assumed need to ultimately make a purchase. But we overlook an audience of potential prospects 50% larger; our current tools overlook the differences in goals, steps, considerations, decisions, and activity that occur as people try to resolve a problem on the Buy Side.

Sure, we track ‘buying’ but, generally, only in terms of product sale – the Sell Side – and overlook the change management activities that people must address before they’re even buyers.

People don’t start off wanting to buy anything, merely resolve their problem at the least ‘cost’ to their system. They begin by figuring out how to congruently manage change.

Indeed, a buying decision is a change management issue well before it’s a solution choice issue. Because sales tools are aimed at how sales and marketing define ‘buying’ and only apply to the Sell Side, folks in the process of possibly becoming buyers but aren’t there yet, won’t heed our messages trying to sell them anything.

Until people understand the entire fact pattern of what and who’s involved and know what any change means to them, they can’t have a full understanding of a need. They certainly don’t read unsolicited marketing material or take appointments, regardless of a need or the efficacy of a solution.

But take heart! By holding off on conventional sales and marketing until these folks are self-identified as buyers, there’s a way to not only find them but facilitate them through the process they must manage, making it easier for them to buy and for us to sell: those who would never buy fall out, those who become buyers will do so faster, and their names can be handed over to Sales Enablement, ABM, or a sales professional as real prospects.

MY JOURNEY AS A BUYER

As a million-dollar producer on Wall Street in the 70s, I thought buyers were incongruent. We called them ‘stupid buyers’ because they didn’t ‘understand’ what we believed they needed.

In 1983 I became a tech entrepreneur in London and recognized the problem I had had as a seller: Before I could buy anything, I had stuff to do internally that had nothing to do with making a purchase. I certainly wouldn’t consider buying anything until I had no other options. To resolve my problems, I had to

understand the full problem set by hearing everyone’s thoughts on how they were affected and what they considered a solution;
try available fixes to resolve the problem internally;
understand the ‘cost’ of doing something different;
get buy-in from those who would connect with the solution;

and, once I understood what the change would entail, determine if the problems were worth fixing. Obviously if a fix caused more problems than leaving things as they were, it wasn’t worth solving. But we couldn’t know that until the end of our considerations. Honestly, I didn’t even understand my real ‘needs’ until I had done all of the above.

There seemed to be unknown implications in doing anything different, necessary to take into account beforehand. I certainly hadn’t realized how much disruption was involved, that making any change (all problem-solving involves change) had to be first considered via thoughtful change management assessments and buy-in, to make sure we ended up ‘butter side up’.

Eventually we fixed some of our problems internally. Indeed, I didn’t start off wanting to buy anything, merely wanting to fix problems as simply and congruently as possible. Buying anything was the very last thing on my mind. Last thing.

CASE STUDY

After leaving my company I became an author of the first NYTimes Business Bestseller on sales (Selling with Integrity) and inventor of Buying Facilitation® that taught sales professionals how to facilitate the Buy Side change management process – the process the sales model ignored because it had little to do with ‘need’ or solution placement.

‘Need’ is a big one in sales; it’s assumed if need can be ascertained, the person should buy. Yet there’s a case to be made that ‘need’ is not necessarily a precursor to buying. Here’s an example of a client with a need who ended up not buying because of what it would ‘cost’ to change.

Years ago I ran a pilot Buying Facilitation® training at Proctor and Gamble, in hopes that if successful I could train the other 15,000 sales folks.

The program was tremendously successful – 15% increase over the control group’s 2% which in this instance potentially increased sales by billions of dollars annually. Good, right? But the ‘costs’ ended up being higher than they wanted to ‘spend’. To implement Buying Facilitation® internationally, they’d need to

bring in new machinery to manufacture products faster,
get more trucks and drivers to transport products to outlets faster,
pay more shipping and air rate costs,
reorganize their management structure,
bring in more assistants, customer service reps, etc.

They calculated it would cost almost $2,000,000,000 (That’s billion.) and take years to recoup, not to mention explain it to their shareholders.

It had never occurred to me to consider what the ‘cost’ of success would be for them. Neither did they. My client said if she’d realized how much more they’d sell and how much faster, she wouldn’t have done the pilot. Confounding.

In this case, they needed the training and loved both me and my ‘solution’ but couldn’t handle the cost of the change. Need, as I learned, had little to do with buying and is actually quite subjective. And outsiders can never factor the private equation.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT BEFORE SELLING

As an entrepreneur I was responsible to staff, solution, and clients. I had to address problem solving as a change management issue and make sure all voices were heard and everyone bought into change.

But as a seller, I never considered the point of view of change. Everything I did, created, or thought was on the Sell Side. I was taught product knowledge, how to listen for a way ‘in’ so I could mention my solution in their context, pose questions that implied a need, start a ‘relationship’ so they’d like me, and assume every ‘need’ or ‘problem’ should be resolved with my solution. As if the Sell Side were the only side.

But how much time I wasted finding and seeking ways to influence folks who weren’t, and might not ever be, buyers! Creating marketing materials to entice would-be buyers who were in process but not ready – certainly not eager to read unsolicited articles on something they didn’t yet know they couldn’t handle themselves.

And how much opportunity I overlooked facilitating would-be buyers to more efficiently figure out what they had to figure out so they would be ready to buy. My ‘Sell Side Only’ practices restricted my audience to those who already considered themselves buyers.

There’s a much larger group of would-be prospects who are not-yet buyers, and won’t be reached with sales assumptions:

those still trying to resolve their problem internally;
those with a problem they don’t want to resolve (now);
those seeking different solutions or from different vendors;
those you’ve mistranslated when they respond to your questions and don’t even have a need.

I now finally understood why buyers seemed so stupid: they weren’t even buyers! All those years assuming my solution, ‘relationship’, and marketing materials would convince, influence, or encourage when I could have been using an additional tool kit to lead them efficiently through their change before trying to sell them anything! We’ve overlooked a potentially lucrative audience.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

I eventually unpacked each step I took during my decision and buy-in process so I could duplicate the route I took as I became a buyer myself.

Turned out my change management process had 13 steps from which I developed Buying Facilitation® for sales, and trained over 100,000 sales folks globally with an average 40% close rate (against the control group’s 5.4%). But these same steps are markers for marketers as well.

Here are the main elements of the 13 step change management path all people go through before they identify as buyers or even understand their needs:

Recognize a problem
Gather the full complement of stakeholders to understand the full fact pattern that caused and maintains the problem
Figure out how to fix the problem with available resources
Understand the downside, the ‘cost’, of making a change
Get the buy in from the stakeholders to agree to the change
Agree on the criteria that an external solution must meet
Choose a solution that will match their criteria.

If you remember times you bought something, you didn’t begin with the purchase, but could have used help figuring out what you had to figure out – so much of it unknown until the end.

Since the time it takes folks to complete their process is the length of the sales cycle, why not help them? While we wouldn’t be able to sell them anything until the process is complete, we would be selling our services and inspiring trust, and be there as real relationship managers and trusted advisors when they more quickly become buyers. Certainly a competitive advantage.

I suggest it’s time to add technology and new thinking in both sales and marketing to enable the Buy Side to

find and help people going through change in the area the solution can benefit,
efficiently lead them through their steps to problem-solve and make decisions,
gather the right set of stakeholders to involve at each step,
offer the best available knowledge so each step will explore the cost – and resolution – of the change.

By adding a change management component to marketing and ABM (Buying Enablement), it’s possible to

recognize non-buyers immediately, and disengage,
lead would-be buyers through their next steps efficiently,
understand where, exactly, people are along their 13 step change management/Buying Decision Path,
efficiently and very quickly lead those who will be buyers through their core change decisions to the point of being ready to buy,
build trusting relationships through helpful content,
create a competitive advantage as you truly serve,
pass the names of real prospects over to sellers and/or sales enablement to do the sales job.

Selling and Buying are two different activities. Let’s develop two different outreach and facilitation processes that work together to efficiently find, engage, and enable real buyers.

BUYING ENABLEMENT AND SALES

In addition to my Buying Facilitation® model that teaches the process of change facilitation to sales folks, I have developed Buying Enablement for marketing to lead folks efficiently through their steps and then hand over names of in-target buyers to Sales Enablement and ABM for the Sell Side.

In other words, help those on route to buying do what they need to do anyway and stop wasting resource following and pushing content to folks you think SHOULD buy but aren’t yet ready. Then hand over real names to SE and sales.

Buying Enablement enters through marketing to facilitate each change management step on the Buy Side, helps would-be buyers become buyers efficiently, then hands off names of real prospects to sales. Of course search analytics can be used, but they will include new terms and timing. The process addresses these points:

Finding people getting ready to, or in the process of, working internally to resolve a problem that your solution could resolve;
Noting specific markers to send specific content;
Helping uncover elements that caused and maintains the problem;
Facilitating the recognition, incorporation, and buy-in of all stakeholders;
Diagnosing and resolving the actual ‘cost’ of change to the system;
Finding a workaround or simple fix where possible;
Determining sales add-ons – sales enablement, Buyer Personas – to move the activity over to sales.

Buying Enablement makes the Buy Side more efficient. Here’s what I offer:

Buy Side training: For both sales, marketing, and customer service professionals to understand the profound differences between the Buy Side and the Sell Side so all can work in tandem going forward.
Data gathering/report: To understand specifically how your specific buyers buy, I’ll speak with several current buyers to discover

a.   the timing, activity, search, people, and constraints during each stage of problem solving and change management;
b.   what they do and when to understand the full problem set. Includes people, relationship, history, and policy issues and snags encountered;
c.   patterns of (external) factors that bias problem maintenance and resolution, and cause resistance;
d.   the possible workarounds and range of solutions they’re considering to resolve the problem and how they fare;
e.   understand their risks in bringing in something new and how that affects people, policies and solution choices;
f.     the times they go online to research each stage and the search terms they use at each stage and why.

I recommend my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell to better understand each step on the Buy Side.

Marketing tools, article ideas, and Buyer Personas for each stage. I will suggest best practices and offer article titles along each step, to get folks the knowledge to do what they need to do. Ardath Albee will design Buyer Personas that lead people through each change management stage. With this full tool kit you’ll know

a.   where prospects are in the buy-cycle,
b.   the job titles of those involved,
c.   have a line between marketing -> content -> sales,
d.   offer titles so marketing can personalize the best content for each stage,
e.   be relevant to the specific needs of your audience.

Digital App: My ‘The Decider’ app can be populated with the knowledge learned from the Report to

a.   efficiently lead folks through their decision phases if they need help;
b.   digitally lead site visitors to the pages with data they need from your site and/or your company,
c.   use with sellers in Deal Rooms,
d.   discover which stage of a change decision they’re at to make sure the best content is sent out to them at the right time.

Footers: Since they’re not yet buyers, we must be careful how solution details are offered. Ardath Albee can tie the right words, tone, style, and voice to ensure buyers are engaged personally.
Connect with Sales Enablement: This process will produce probable buyers to hand over to sales and Sales Enablement and continue outreach throughout the length of the customer life cycle.

With our close ratios dropping, and more money being spent to engage it’s time to begin adding Buying Enablement to marketing and Buying Facilitation® to sales. Is it solution related? Nope. But people must do all these things before they’re buyers anyway. We might as well help them.

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Sharon Drew Morgen October 18th, 2021

Posted In: News

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