Blog – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

Where does ‘common knowledge’ come from? I began wondering when writing my book on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. I had thought I was an attentive listener and heard everything perfectly because, well, obviously, we all hear precisely what a speaker shares! Nope. Turns out we only accurately ‘hear’ 10-35% of what’s been said! My goodness! If that bit of common knowledge was wrong, what else was wrong?

With my new awareness I began keeping a list and found many common assumptions that we’ve all perpetuated. I’d like to share some – by no means a complete list – that we take for granted that have been proven untrue or at least face reasonable doubt as fail rates prevail in habit change, weight loss, implementations, selling, coaching, etc.

Sample

WHY NOT USE FAILURE AS A REASON TO CHANGE?

These erroneous norms (below) have been handed down for decades and built into many of our (business) practices. Sadly, due to their ubiquitous nature, they continue without even casting doubt (i.e. false assumptions like ‘people will buy once sellers find prospects with need’ – 95% failure; ‘habits can change permanently with behavior modification’ – 97% failure.).

Why is failure merely built-into the bottom line (hire 9x more sellers, i.e.) rather than changing assumptions? If we realize that change models achieve resistance in almost all projects, and over 70% of project fail, why not do something different and alleviate it by ensuring and managing buy-in before a project commences?

As you read these and find yourself resisting, remember: your assumptions are the norms through which you translate what’s been said and restrict your curiosity, your behaviors, your choices. We are all hampered by their universal repetition and imbedded use, following us into daily life: scientific research, college programs; healthcare, behavior change….

This article will hopefully broaden your world view, inspire further thought, or at least cause you to do some research. Or maybe just make you angry.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Behaviors are standalone events and pop up as needed.

Resistance is a natural element during change.

Selling causes buying.

People don’t consider the risk when making choices.

You can change a behavior with habit change and behavior modification.

People who are homeless got that way through mistakes they’ve made.

A reduced calorie intake maintains weight loss.

Good information will produce a new decision, cause learners to learn, people to buy, and patients to change their behaviors.

Statins are the only way to reduce cholesterol and there are no natural remedies that are more effective (Hint: Red Yeast Rice).

The toilet seat should be down.

I am speaking with the decision maker.

Choice comes from conscious decision making.

Sellers can understand what buyers need; meetings are important to the sales process.

Implementation occurs when clients are given a good solution.

Learning occurs when new information is presented.

Neuroplasticity occurs when the brain experiences new inputs.

Doctors have the answers. We will heal if we follow their suggestions.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

The only remedy for a bad, painful hip is a hip replacement.

Agave is healthy. Butter, ice cream, and fats are bad for you. Eggs have too much cholesterol.

Mick Jagger is the leader of the Rolling Stones.

Castor oil makes you healthy.

If we listen intentionally/carefully/attentively, we will accurately understand what’s been said.

Eye blinks are so short they don’t affect our vision.

Everyone interprets specific words the same way.

There’s such a thing as objectively rational.

The role of a coach is to impart knowledge/wisdom.

Leaders understand enough about a problem to set the goal for a project.

We can figure out what’s really going on by noticing behavioral problems.

Mind and Brain are interchangeable.

Our curiosity is infinite.

We can learn and retain new knowledge when we hear it.

Good questions elicit good, accurate answers.

Permanent, resistance-free change is possible when good information is known and practiced.

When we believe/recognize an idea/answer to be a good one, it probably is.

Intuition is not restricted.

People over 70 aren’t horny anymore.

We interpret words according to their meaning.

People will buy when they’ve understood how a specific solution will fix their problem; an appropriate solution will generate a buying decision.

If you hunch over and raise your shoulders you’ll get warm.

Voice bots and virtual receptionists can take care of customers as well as live receptionists.

Memories are accurate renditions of what occurred.

It’s possible to accurately hear what Others say.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I hope these cliches prompted some thoughts! And for being so supportive and reading this far, here two gems: a present: the amount of time football players actually physically play is 11 minutes; If you add up the time you’re functionally blind when you blink, you’ve been unsighted for 23 minutes a day. SD

__________________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen January 23rd, 2026

Posted In: News

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Dear Vendor:

I assume you want my business and care about keeping me as a loyal customer. I also assume that whatever you do, whoever you hire, is paid for by my contributions to your coffers and you need me to keep your business afloat. Why, then, do you disrespect me? Insult me? Waste my time? Infuriate me?

I’m writing to tell you that your voice bots and virtual receptionists stink. They waste my time keeping me on hold for hours – Best Buy once kept me on hold for 13 hours (!). When the tech called at 3:10 a.m. and asked (in a perky voice, no less) ‘So how are you today!?’ he hung up on me when I replied: ‘Angry. Why have you kept me on hold since yesterday? Do you know it’s the middle of the night here now?’ – transfer me to incorrect departments, keep playing that insipid music that makes me want to vomit, offer me useless choices and otherwise make it impossible for me to get through to you.

WHY ARE YOU USING VIRTUAL RECEPTIONISTS?

I’d really like to know why you’re using these insulting bits of software. Are you trying to save money? I would think the customers you lose would cost you money in the long run. Not to mention you’re thinking short-term and fail to remember you’re in business to serve. Indeed, every product you sell is a promise to serve. You’ve apparently forgotten your promise. And while large companies can weather some lost business, smaller companies can’t…not to mention they’ve lost an opportunity to touch customers and brand themselves as a caring company that serves customers.

Do you not realize that by not touching customers when they call, you’re giving up the ability to serve and generate trust, hear what’s going on, or understand and resolve the repeating complaints that might eventually lead to new sales? I can’t tell you the number of times good receptionists have led me to resolutions I hadn’t known about, or given me new ideas and ways to use your products.

Maybe there are other reasons: you think your phone bots and virtual receptionists offer me better help than a real human? Maybe – and this seems most likely to me, your customer – you just want me to stop calling. When I call and get these infuriating ‘voices’ and inappropriate options, and am left on hold forever, I’m sorry I purchased anything from you. I certainly won’t do so again. And when friends ask for referrals, I share a story of how you wasted my time and suggest they find another supplier.

PLEASE CALL IN TO YOUR OWN COMPANY

I have a great idea. Call in to your own company. You might be surprised to find you’re offered unhelpful choices. Or face long hold times (and then get dropped). Or get sent to the wrong department – if you ever even get through. Make sure you call when you have no meetings planned because you’ll be put on hold for minutes/hours to ensure you waste your time.

Oh – here’s a hint. Don’t bother telling the bot what you want as you’ll be misinterpreted or given bad/inappropriate choices (Regardless of the question or offered choices, just keep repeating REPRESENTATIVE until you’re screaming it.). You might find yourself annoyed that you’ll need to call back again and again to get through to anyone or anything! Even your own reps don’t want to place a call into your receptionist to help me find the right department after I’ve been sent down a rabbit hole and some sympathetic employee tries to help me.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?

I wonder if you even want me as a customer. But maybe that’s your plan – to get me so frustrated that I’ll not call again? That you’ll hope my problem will disappear itself? I recently failed to get through to UPS to file a complaint against a driver for deeply unprofessional behavior. As he was leaving his van to make a delivery, I asked him to move it from my marked parking spot so I could park. He refused, kept walking away, called me a Bitch, then gave me The Finger. Does UPS want their drivers doing that? I would think they’d want to either fire this guy or at least offer him further training. Are they happy to have this guy represent them? Or maybe they just don’t care about their employees or brand either?

Here’s a question: What do you expect me to do when I need you for information, or product support? If you cared about me or your brand, I’d speak with a human to make sure my complaint gets through to the right place, or my problem gets solved.

It seems you don’t care. I, for one, won’t buy from you again. I look forward to the old days, when companies cared about me and keeping my business. What a shame we all have to be at the wrong end of this nonsense now. Fix it.

________________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com, https://sharondrew1.substack.com/, and https://medium.com/@sharondrew_9898/. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen January 12th, 2026

Posted In: Communication, Listening

I wonder why I rarely hear the word Dignity used in business. Not only do we each seek to do work and have relationships that encourage and include dignity, we aspire to promote products and have client connections in ways that maintain the self-worth and self-respect of all.

But I’m certain we could all do a lot more to achieve it. Let me share a personal story that first alerted me to the importance of dignity.

In the 1980s I moved to London to start up a tech company and simultaneously started up a non-profit to support folks with the neurological disease my son suffers from (We just had our 40th year anniversary!). The woman I partnered with (Joan) was a long-time sufferer of the illness and had great difficulty opening her eyelids or lifting her neck. But she worked hard to type notes (just a few typos!) to other sufferers sending resources, and setting up ‘meet and greets’ with doctors and medical schools around the UK where we’d travel to share the latest treatment information.

Every Wednesday night Joan and I went to dinner prior to getting down to work. And every Wednesday night I picked up the check, knowing Joan – age 75 at the time and obviously disabled – was living on state assistance. But one Wednesday as I reached for the check, Joan’s hand came down onto mine.

Joan: I’ll pay tonight.

SD: That’s okay. I’m working and have more available cash than you have.

Joan: I said I’ll pay. I may not have money, but I have dignity. Don’t take away my dignity.

I then realized that by always paying I was taking away her agency, her dignity as an equal partner. Seems it wasn’t about the money at all. In fact, my decision to pay for each meal suddenly seemed like a power thing. How many times had I substituted money and power for dignity?

PROMOTING DIGNITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Dignity is a private, personal consideration we each hold that matches our beliefs about who we are; we gravitate toward people who honor it. Through our personal dignity we show up authentically and remove ourselves from people and situations that threaten it.

In our personal lives we observe the dignity of our friends and family. But I am unaware of this term being applied in the workplace with specific actions that will ensure we provide dignity to those we touch. This article discusses how to impart dignity and what to do to achieve it.

As entrepreneurs and business owners we must

build dignity into our norms, policies, communications and conventions,
make sure we treat each other, our employees and our clients, with respect at meetings, interactions, emails, etc.,
act in ways that respect each other’s self-worth,
minimize the stress our employees feel when being disrespected.

But how do we ‘do’ dignity?

1. Fair pay: I can’t say this strongly enough. Paying people fairly enables them to feel respected and valued, and take care of their families and their health. Without fair pay, the rest of this article is moot.

2. A culture of diversity: Diversity is a word thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? Sure, it means racial and gender diversity in hiring and advancement practices. But what about neurodivergent folks who get ignored because their ideas don’t seem to fit in? What about folks who think or act differently? Each difference expands possibilities and enables a broader range of ideas and promise.

As someone with Asperger’s and highly out-of-the-box ideas, I spent years being ignored and denigrated when in fact my concepts would have prevented many situations, facilitated successful projects without resistance, and closed a lot more sales. How do we create and maintain a culture of real diversity in which everyone’s voice gets appreciated and no one faces indignity?

3. Transparent communication: Too often management omits making the full data set available, making it impossible to gather the full fact pattern or inspire creativity. Worse, good ideas get dismissed or go unheard and employees end up being disincentivized. The cost is incalculable to companies, employees, and clients: not only does creativity falter, but people lose trust in their employers.

4. Work-life balance: When we expect our folks to work weekends, long hours, lots of overtime, we take away their dignity as human beings, not to mention their time to destress, think, relax so they can return to work invigorated and creative. We not only harm them, we harm our own productivity and success.

If there’s a frequent problem causing staff to work excessive hours, it becomes a stress/health issue. We need to either hire additional staff or allow the problem a lengthier solution process that doesn’t require employees to regularly give up their private time.

When we exploit our employee’s dignity, we cause folks to go home crying, face sleepless nights, feel disrespected. I know this from the countless interviews I’ve had with unhappy employees: They may not tell us, but their work will fall off and eventually they’ll leave for a job that will respect them.

Sample

PROMOTING DIGNITY WITH CLIENTS

Promoting dignity must extend to clients and customers. Here are a few factors to consider:

Communication: Too often we fail to let our clients and customers know if there’s a problem from our end: delivery/time issues; delivering the solutions promised with the same people they’ve become accustomed to. When I ran my tech support company, I checked in with each client for 15 minutes every month. That went a long way to resolving brewing issues. And when some companies find a flaw in their product or service, it’s vital they formally announce the issue and resolution so clients aren’t left in the dark.
Value our promises: As per above, our clients and customers must be notified if there are disruptions in service or quality. It’s respectful and maintains the dignity of our promise as suppliers.
Respect clients/customers as partners: There are plenty of other providers our clients/customers can go to when/if they feel we’re not respecting them. In other words, no overly long hold times; delivery as promised; follow up to ensure quality as promised; no pushy sales practices.

Remember: without addressing and maintaining our client’s dignity, we wouldn’t even be in business.

DIGNITY IS A PRIMARY BUSINESS PRACTICE

It’s necessary to add dignity as a necessary element for creating and maintaining integrous business practices for our staff and customer base. Here are some Facilitative Questions™ to help you think through any changes you might need to make and inspire compliance:

How will you know when/if your current business practices need upgrading?
What criteria will you and your team need to meet to decide on what practices might need improvement?
What skills/tools will you use to let your clients/customers know of changes or problems, to insure your communication enhances their dignity?
What skills/tools do you and your team need to learn to ensure you consider Dignity as a standard business practice?

Should you wish to enhance your skill set to include Dignity in your staff training as a soft skill, marketing, promotions, decision making practices and projects, please contact me to discuss: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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

Sharon Drew Morgen January 5th, 2026

Posted In: News

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

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

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

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

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

Sample

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

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

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

If you have questions, please get in touch: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

____________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen December 22nd, 2025

Posted In: Communication, News

AI has become integrated into our lives. I’m sure we will continue discussing whether it’s constructive or destructive for quite some time. Certainly it’s been a boon to science and medicine. But does AI squelch creativity? Plagiarize? Important discussions to have. Surely we’ve all benefited.

But to date, AI doesn’t enable the systemic journey a user’s brain must take to discover and apply their core values for personal decision making.

HOW VALUES-BASED, BRAIN-BASED DECISIONS ARE MADE

When people ask AI for advice, they’re largely provided with amalgams of historic information. But this doesn’t enable the neurochemical, very complex, values-based and largely unconscious decision process that would guide users to the:

core values-criteria in their brain
that represents their beliefs, culture, norms, and history
and form the singular, unconscious, and subjective outputs (actions, decisions, behaviors)
that emerge when a mixture of the brain’s limbic system, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine
cull choice criteria from the decision maker’s
- - history
  - mental models
  - personal beliefs
  - time comparators
  - private assumptions
  - norms/culture
and represent the neural activities
beyond the amalgamation of external sources.

In other words, there’s a whole lotta neural processing that must occur before a values-based, personal decision can be reached. And it can’t be done with information.

INFORMATION DOESN’T GENERATE PERSONAL DECISIONS

Don’t get me wrong. Information is vital once values-based criteria are in place. But providing information before the neural work has been completed causes resistance – the reason sales pitches, leadership requests, coaching interactions face so much opposition: the Other’s beliefs, norms, history, assumptions are overlooked and potentially provoked.

Decision making is largely unconscious and uniquely personal – a complex, systemic process that involves much neural organization. Until

the system (the person, family or team) understands and agrees to the risk of doing/thinking anything different;
the system (person, family or team) understands the full set of foundational elements (history, rules, beliefs, etc.) that have mitigated the status quo and must be shifted;
the system (person, family or team) understands its risk of change (and the risk of change must be less than the risk of staying the same) and knows how to manage it with minimal disruption;
the new is congruent with the core beliefs and values of the system;

no new decision will be taken regardless of the need or the efficacy of the information. And the time it takes the decision maker to figure all this out – sometimes a protracted period as we work at piecing together all the elements residing in our unconscious – is the length of time it takes to “come to a decision”.

To make a personal decision, people must align the presenting facts against their biases, values, assumptions, emotions, history, beliefs, reasoning approach, future needs, hopes and fears, then understand and manage risks, all before choosing the actions to take, before making a decision.

Otherwise the new information will compete with what we already assume is true and has been logged in our neural circuits. But it won’t shift core decision criteria, regardless of how necessary or important the information.

AI could help by sequencing and simulating neural processing and actually make values-based decisions quick and efficient.

Sample

WHAT IS A DECISION?

Decision making arises from our neural circuits. Outcomes – behaviors, actions – are merely expressions of the originating beliefs and identity of the system, and require Systems Congruence for change to be acceptable. Even the most necessary information won’t be accepted unless the system believes it’s not at risk.

To choose a new action, to ensure any decision is congruent with the system and won’t cause disruption, specific neural circuits must be discovered, and the systemic, personal elements at the core of all values-based decisions must be managed:

Mind/brain: AI largely focuses on adding ideas (content) to the mind. But the brain is where decision criteria are stored, and that’s unconscious.

Misinterpreting incoming content: Due to the way brains ‘listen’, people only accurately understand 10-35% of the information offered. I wrote a book on this.

Managing the status quo: We are each comprised of several systems administered by our mechanical brain processes. Each activity we perform, all of what we believe, resides in neural circuits that maintain Systems Congruence. New decisions threaten congruence and must be approved by the original system so it doesn’t feel at risk.

Repositioning/reevaluating belief hierarchy: Making a final decision involves a process of weighting values, history, assumptions, and cultural norms and comparing them against future gains/losses…a process unique to each individual and largely unconscious.

Comparators: All change/values-based decisions require comparing historic activity and the decisions that led to the status quo.

Once these have been addressed (a sequential process) and the system feels congruent with the change, users are ready to make a decision and information is needed.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

AI requires prompts to trigger answers. But the questions currently used prompt historic, amalgamated information and don’t get to the unconscious elements of values-based decision making. Here’s why.

Standard questions elicit data and are biased by the wording, intent, and goals of the questioner – often making assumptions that don’t comport with the user’s unconscious or getting to their specific circuits necessary for decision making. Additionally, people interpret what’s said or any information offered according to their existing neural circuits that represent their history and personal beliefs.

When writing my book WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard? I discovered that we ‘hear’ (understand, recognize) according to the historic circuits that have been developed over time in our brain ensuring we interpret incoming words according to what we already know and believe. Anything outside these circuits get misunderstood, or misinterpreted.

Due to the way brains ‘listen’ (filled with distortions and deletions) listeners accurately hear only 10-35% of what’s been said. In other words, what we hear, or read will be translated into some version of what we’ve heard or read before and not necessarily an accurate interpretation of the initial intent of the question.

Certainly information that’s far outside what’s already known has no neural circuits to accurately translate it. (Note: I’ve invented a Learning Facilitation™ model that works with the brain to first generate new neural circuits to accurately translate and retain new knowledge.)

When coaching sites use AI to pose questions to help users manage their emotions or make personal decisions, they offer stock questions in hopes of inspiring introspection. But these, largely, don’t enable one individual, with one set of unique problems, a unique history, and unique set of neural circuits to make a values-based decision that is congruent for their beliefs and values. They certainly do not enable users to self-generate unique queries to sequentially lead them through their neural decision making.

To make a values-based decision people must generate unconscious prompts through their own neural circuitry.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

In 1988, I read Roger Schank’s book Tell Me a Story that said the only way to find an answer that was tucked away in the brain was to pose a good question. But he never explained what a ‘good question’ was. I already recognized that questions are biased and assumptive and couldn’t understand how it was possible to discover bias-free answers. I became intrigued by the possibility of generating a question that

had no biases, assumptions, or principles that would prejudice the answers;
would get to the specific, unconscious, neural circuits where values-based answers are stored.

As an original thinker, I then spent 10 years figuring out the elements involved to ensure personal decisions could be easily made:

the sequence necessary for the Responder to discover their existing values, patterns, specific reference points;
the route to the specific neural circuits that held the values-based criteria to match a congruent answer;
the specific words, sequences, and sentence structures that would get to the specific neural circuits where values-based choice criteria could be found and managed for congruent, systemic change;
the ability to hear/recognize the next question to formulate to enable the listener’s (user’s) brain to take the next step in the decision-making sequence;
the specific hierarchy of decision criteria that lead to a values-based decision;
the perceptual position the Responder had to be in to hear the question without bias.

I eventually invented a new form of question (Facilitative Questions™ FQs) that is brain-directional and leads the Other to the specific neural circuits necessary to cause change and values-based decisions.

To enable AI to facilitate personal decisions, I believe a rules-based FacilitationAI is needed to prompt sequences of self-generated FQs. Since each FQ that appears is self-generated from a user’s answers, and formulated singularly in unique sequences, none are generic. They can also be used singularly in specific circumstances, like helping customers provide feedback.

FQs can provide a new area for AI:

life/personal coaching;
personal/team decision making;
customer feedback.

I’m happy to discuss and provide examples in detail, but fear adding more specifics in this article will lead to AI developers stealing my IP without the full set of rules. Please contact me to discuss. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_____________________

Sharon Drew Morgen December 15th, 2025

Posted In: Communication

Neurodiversity is now considered a variation of human experience rather than a disability. Indeed, 20% of the workforce is neurodiverse including 50% of sales and technology professionals. That means there’s a good chance there are neurodivergent (ND) employees working in your company. But you may not know who they are: 75% of ND employees avoid disclosure.

CREATING A SAFE PLACE FOR NEURODIVERSE EMPLOYEES

Diversity, generally defined as race and gender diversity, is included in most hiring practices these days. Some companies go further and specify inclusive hiring practices for neurodiverse people in their job specs and include requests for applicants to state their needs for the interviewing process.

But companies without specific neurodiversity hiring practices may not know the ND employees already working for them, making the problem of self-disclosure and individual support a big one for both the company and the employee: ND folks are often afraid of losing their jobs or facing discrimination if they self-disclose and, because there’s no structure for it, may not get the services they need to be as successful as they otherwise might be.

To find and serve these highly creative, hard-working individuals, to ensure they’re accepted and integrated, your company culture must embody inclusion so they’re accepted and integrated onto teams; given work that matches their unique skills; and get supervised by managers who know how to communicate with them – all areas fraught with obstacles unless there are accepted practices in place.

The question for the HR professional is: are you willing to create an inclusive workplace environment – a culture – that offer unique hiring methods? In which NDs are offered supervision or needed allowances? Can choose to self-disclose? In which communication practices are shared and discussed? Where everyone can learn from each other and thrive?

CULTURE CHANGE

ND people think, understand, act, and communicate differently from their neurotypical (NT) colleagues. And because they are in the minority it’s been left up to them to fit in – challenging since their needs may defy standard practices.

Creating a culture in which neurodiverse employees not only fit in but are active, successful, accepted members of the community takes work. It’s not merely doing a few things differently but having a commitment to an inclusive workplace where everyone thrives, welcomes diversity, and collaborates. It means a culture change.

TO DO’S

Here are some specific suggestions if you currently have no dedicated plan (or want to add to what you’re already doing):

Rethink hiring practices. Some neurodiverse people may be overwhelmed during standard interviews. Ask applicants to provide examples of their work on email; ask them how they’d like to communicate with interviewers.
Discover the barriers to inclusion within the company. You can use confidential surveys, questionnaires, suggestion boxes to gather information and suggestions from current ND employees, including what they would need from HR or their managers to have a safer, more comfortable situation so they can succeed. It’s a good idea to use a consultant to assist you with these as they know the best vocabulary and topics to include.

Doing this puts out a clear message to all employees that you’re taking ‘workplace inclusion’ seriously. And don’t forget to publish the findings from this outreach so everyone is working from the same fact pattern.

Inclusive communications. Employee communiques must be written clearly and directly with a visual component if possible. In written communiques there is sometimes a note at the bottom that invites anyone seeking clarification to contact the sender.
Internal campaigns: Begin running internal campaigns targeted to inclusion: stories from leaders about how they learned to be better at providing directions for their ND team members or what they learned from their ND employees; great ways to manage problems that might arise; or stories from disclosed NDs themselves on best practices for collaborating with colleagues. This not only provides stories for other leaders and folks with neurodiversity but plainly affirms the company’s dedication to inclusion.
Questionnaires: Send out questionnaires that request employees share what they need from management to be even more successful. Make sure they’re unmarked and unnamed so undisclosed NDs can respond without fear of discrimination.
Management training: bring in consulting firms (Orchvate https://www.orchvate.com/) that specialize in best practices (integration, sensitization, awareness) on communicating with NDs. These could also be taught by ND employees who have disclosed and are willing to share their personal knowledge. Btw the secondary gain here is that all your employees will communicate – collaborate, ideate, work – more successfully.
Time management training programs for all employees. This will naturally include ND folks but would be useful for all. ND folks have strict time issues – always on time, very organized to get stuff done on time, etc.
Physical issues: Neurodiverse people have a greater sensitivity to their surroundings – overhead lights, noise – than neurotypical folks and may have physical challenges that require flexible work arrangements and accommodations. Provide Quiet Spaces for anyone who needs them.
Advertise inclusive job opportunities in other departments: i.e.’ Seeking folks with strong pattern recognition, or great job for people who enjoy hyper focusing.’
Hold frequent discussions via intranet, bulletins, house organs written by NT staff about their resolved work challenges or great conversations.
Peer coaching: where possible, set up peer coaching relationships between self-disclosed ND folks and those who have not yet self-disclosed, or between managers who have ND employees and want to support and learn from each other, or…
Publish corporate guidelines on inclusion: by clearly stating in all corporate communiques that the company has a culture of inclusion, it becomes obvious to employees and potential hires that all are welcome, regardless of difference.

NDs may be overlooked and burned out – certainly not contributing fully. Doing this lets all employees know they must be more accepting and learn new skills.

These practices will generate trust: trust that the culture has changed; trust for NDs to self-disclose without discrimination; trust that the company values their input; trust that any existing problems will be resolved.

CONCLUSION

Neurodiverse employees offer great advantages. In addition to being loyal, hardworking, relentless, creative, and honest, they bring new points of view otherwise not considered that stimulate creative solutions and outside-the-box thinking,

Create a culture in which they want to work, and once employed, to thrive. Find those in your company and serve them. Generate a culture of inclusion and acceptance. Design hiring and outreach procedures that find people who would not only fit but be an asset.

Bio: Sharon-Drew Morgen Morgen Facilitations, Inc. www.sharon-drew.com sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a New York Times Business Bestselling author and inventor of systemic change models for sales, leadership, coaching, change, System Dynamics and decision making. She is neurodiverse and believes her neurodiversity has enabled her success. *This article appeared in the 11/25 issue of HR.com magazine.

_____________________

Sharon Drew Morgen December 8th, 2025

Posted In: Communication

Going from a successful sales professional to an entrepreneur of a start-up tech company, I realized the problem with sales. As an entrepreneur I tried to tried to resolve problems in-house. When impossible, the next step was to figure out if we were willing to go external and actually buy something, figure out if the ‘cost’, the risk, of making a purchase would carry a greater risk than keeping things as they were.

We ended up fumbling around trying to figure this out, but always moving toward congruent change; I didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And it wasn’t until we figured out how, if, or when to change without major disruption, and until everyone bought in, I never even considered buying anything.

Along the way I tracked my steps and noticed our decision-making process, a change management process with specific stages, each meant to maintain stability, each meant to find solutions and workarounds that would match our goals and norms.

WHO IS A BUYER

I was surprised to discover that regardless of my need, or any available solutions that I could have purchased earlier, I never considered myself a buyer and ignored all sales content.

This process, this change management process I went through, is something everyone does before they become buyers. In other words, the missing piece in sales was the change piece: if sales first sought folks trying to solve a problem in the area my solution would help them with, then facilitated them through the issues they needed to resolve (job descriptions, goals, buy-in, workarounds, and organizational/internal change) before choosing their least disruptive solution, we’d find folks on route to buying and make their process more efficient.

When we attempt to sell our solutions too early, folks haven’t yet determined their full set of needs, don’t have all the stakeholders on board, haven’t yet tried all workarounds, and generally are not ready to buy. The pitching and presenting, waiting and following up, was falling on deaf ears.

I sure could have used help making the process more efficient; if a sales person had helped me understand the issues my decision-making had to include, I would have figured out a lot sooner if I needed to buy something. But unfortunately, this is overlooked by the sales industry because it is NOT purchase-based.

I finally understood the missing piece in the sales model, the cause of the very low close rates: by assuming someone with ‘need’ is a prospect, we ignore the obligatory change management portion that precedes decision making. What if we added a wholly new skill set to first find folks in the process of change, help them address it, and THEN sell once they became buyers?

Turns out selling and change facilitation are two distinct endeavors with two distinct skill sets. I decided to develop a front end tool to add to the sales model.

For years I’d been studying NLP and neuroscience to best understand how brains are organized so I could figure out how to make change more efficient. I combined this knowledge with my newfound understanding of what goes on behind-the-scenes on the Buy Side, and developed a generic change facilitation model called Buying Facilitation® as a precursor (and wholly separate model) to sales.

This article introduces you to Buying Facilitation®, a precursor to sales, and a way to facilitate people along their route to buy-in, decision-making, and change. And buying.

DO YOU WANT TO SELL? OR HELP SOMEONE BUY?

BIG IDEA: People don’t want to buy anything, merely solve a problem at the least ‘cost’ (risk) to their system. Until they understand the risk of bringing in something new, they won’t self-identify as ‘buyers’ regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution.

PROBLEM: People don’t consider they have a need until all workarounds are tried and all stakeholders agree. They won’t heed any selling efforts even if the content offered might solve their problem. By seeking out folks with ‘need’, sellers restrict their audience to the low-hanging fruit – those who have completed their 13 step change management process they must traverse before considering they’ve got a need and become buyers.

SOLUTION: It’s possible to find folks who WILL become buyers on the first call, facilitate them through their change steps with a change/decision model (Buying Facilitation®), and then sell. But because the two endeavors are distinct, trying to incorporate change facilitation with selling causes the same resistance and avoidance sellers currently get.

BIG IDEA: People don’t become buyers until they’ve handled all of their internal stuff, the risk of change is acceptable, and everyone involved agrees they’re ready, willing, and able to bring in something new. With a solution-placement focus, sales and marketing finds only those few who have completed their change process.

PROBLEM: The problem is not in getting our solution sold; it’s in getting our solution bought. Before self-identifying as buyers, people have Pre-Sales, change management work to do that doesn’t involve the content we try to push on them. Our sales and marketing efforts seek to ‘get in’, get read, or determine ‘need’, which restricts the prospect base to people who already know what they need (those who have completed their process).

SOLUTION: Before they become buyers they must assemble the most appropriate people, get consensus, try workarounds, understand the ‘cost’/risk of making a change, and manage the actual change. Current tools only create connections with people already seeing external solutions, but it’s possible to enter earlier with a change toolkit:

Because of the selling biases in our listening and questioning, sellers extract partial data, from people who don’t have the full fact pattern yet and who haven’t self-identified as buyers;
promised dates get ignored and we spend huge amounts of time following up people who will never buy because WE think they have a need (and ‘need’ does not a buyer maker);
we lose an opportunity to connect and prove our competitive worth by entering with a change facilitation purpose first;
we waste our time pushing content on folks not yet buyers and waiting, hoping they’ll buy, and cause resistance instead of entering earlier to facilitate the change.

Buying Facilitation® uses a very specific tool kit, the Pre-Sales stuff selling doesn’t handle. Once we help with this, we’ve either helped them help themselves, or they realize they cannot solve the problem internally and they become prospects. For these folks, we then sell. These are the folks we would have ended up trying to sell to anyway, but too often we would have been ignored because they hadn’t been ready. Once they’ve reached this point, they are ready buyers and no longer prospects.

BIG IDEA: The flaw in the sales model: designed to place solutions, sales starts selling to anyone they assume has a need, well before people are prospects, before they are ready/able to buy and haven’t gotten the buy-in or understood the ‘cost’ of making a change. This restricts success to those who finally self-identify as buyers – the low-hanging fruit (5%).

PROBLEM: The status quo is preferred and is the basis of decision making. Regardless of a buyer’s real need (which they often don’t understand until very late in the change cycle), or the relevance of a solution; regardless of relationship or pitch/content/price; it is only when they’ve completed their change and all agree they need an external solution that they consider buying anything. This holds true regardless of type or price of solution.

SOLUTION: Buying Facilitation® is a generic, unique brain-based change facilitation model that facilitates people through the obligatory systemic decision-making steps necessary to manage change. Those who end up solving their problem are fine – we’ve served them quickly and there’s no need to follow up. Those who need our solution become prospects and sellers then shift into selling modality to place solutions. It can be used with small personal products, cold calls, help desks, complex sales, and marketing.

Because BF must be unbiased, I developed a new form of listening (Listening for Systems) and a new form of direction-driven/non-biased question (Facilitative Question) to facilitate someone’s journey through the steps of change. Once folks are at the point of becoming prospects and buyers, sellers are already in place and the buy cycle is quick.

But you must remember not to use BF as a selling tool or you’ll end up with the same results you’re getting now. It’s necessary to understand that a buying decision is first a change management problem before a solution choice issue.

Buyers must handle this stuff, with you or without you: you’ve always sat and waited (and called, sent, called, pitched, prayed, waited) while they do this for themselves and the time it takes them is the length of the sales cycle (And no, there is NO indecision!). If you can collaborate with them first as change facilitators, not solution providers, you’ll serve them from the beginning. [Read my book on this: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com]

EXAMPLE OF USING BUYING FACILITATION®

Let me lead you through one simple situation from a small business banker I trained at a major US bank. They decided to employ Buying Facilitation® throughout the bank following a successful pilot training:

A. Control group Sales: 100 calls, 10 appointments, 2 closed sales in 11 months.

B. Buying Facilitation®: 100 calls, 37 appointments, 29 closed sales in 3 months.

While these numbers might sound high, remember: interactions proceed differently using Buying Facilitation® because the focus is different: it’s first a call with a change facilitation hat on to (A) find those seeking change, (B) then facilitate them through their entire decision path and (C) then sell to those who become buyers.

Starting by seeking those folks already involved in finding the best route to change, and using ‘change’ rather than ‘need’ as the original focus, there’s different output and the odds of finding and facilitating someone who will become a buyer are high.

Using Buying Facilitation® with a Facilitative Question, my client started like this:

“Hi. My name is John and I’m a small business banker from X bank. This is a sales call. I’m wondering: How are you currently adding new banking resources for those times your current bank can’t give you what you need to keep your business operating optimally?”

Notice he’s not attempting to ‘uncover need’. Here’s the thinking: Given all small businesses have some banking relationship, the only businesses who would want to discuss new banking services were: 1. those who weren’t happy with their current bank, or 2. had bankers who might not be able to provide what they might need.

By helping them figure out where they could add a new resource without disrupting current vendor relationships, my clients vastly expanded the field of possible buyers and instantly eliminated those who would never buy. After all, people have the right to be satisfied with their current vendors!

It proved a winning tactic: 37 were willing to continue the conversation, line up all of the decision factors, figure out who the real stakeholders were, and have everyone meet the seller, just from that opening question (up from 10). During the field visit we helped them get buy-in and consensus to bring in an additional vendor – us. Win/win. Collaboration. True facilitation.

CONCLUSION:

Buying Facilitation® is not sales, not a solution placement tool, not an information gathering tool, and not a persuasion tactic. It’s not content-driven, and sellers don’t try to understand a buyer’s needs because they can’t know their needs until the end of when they’ve become buyers: until they figure out how to manage any change, they are only people trying to solve a problem – not buyers – and they will resist all sales efforts and content. Once all workarounds have been tried, and the ‘cost’ (risk) to the system is understood and found agreeable to all stakeholders, people then self-identify as buyers.

By first facilitating change and decision making before trying to sell, you’ve halved the sales cycle and doubled the folks interested in buying. There’s no manipulation, no persuasion, no influencing. It’s a win/win collaboration, servant leader model that might lead into a sales process: we actually facilitate buyer readiness.

I can’t say this enough: buyers go through this anyway, without us. Let’s use our industry knowledge and be real trusted advisors. Find folks going through change in the area our solution serves, then help them navigate their change before selling. It can be your competitive edge.

And we end up with real prospects who we’ve helped get ready to buy. Not to mention the collaboration, trust, respect, and integrity built into the interaction creates lasting relationships when used throughout the relationship.

The good news is that you can still sell – but only to those who are indeed ready willing and able, rather than waste 90% of your time trying to manipulate, pitch, persuade, push, ‘get through the door’, network, write content, etc. You can help those who CAN buy get their ducks in a row and quickly eliminate those who will never buy because it will become obvious to you both.

I’m not suggesting you don’t sell; I’m merely suggesting you find and facilitate change for those who WILL buy, and set that up by first facilitating prospective buyers down their own buying decision path.

____________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com, https://sharondrew1.substack.com/, and https://medium.com/@sharondrew_9898/. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen November 24th, 2025

Posted In: Listening, Sales

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

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample

WHAT IS AN ANSWER?

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS CHANGE?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

____________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com, https://sharondrew1.substack.com/, and https://medium.com/@sharondrew_9898/. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen November 17th, 2025

Posted In: Communication, Listening

A friend of mine delivers leadership training in police departments. On the first morning he has the partners dance with each other, taking turns for an hour at a time as Leader and Follower. As most of them are men, they start off very uncomfortable when they must be the ‘follower’. But follow they must; he tells them if they can’t follow, they can’t lead.

As Leaders with specific goals we’re responsible for, we operate from the assumption we’re in charge. But what, exactly, are we in charge of? I believe our job as Leaders is to be the sentries, to facilitate our Followers to discover their best outcomes and help them set a path to a successful goal. But to do so we must experience the issues our Followers are experiencing. As they say in Argentine Tango, if you notice the leader, he’s not doing his job.

WHAT IS OUR JOB

The most commonly accepted job of Leaders is to begin with a plan to achieve an outcome, and then work at creating and driving the path to execute it. But this strategy faces several problems:

We have no way of knowing beforehand if it could succeed.
If we don’t gather ideas from everyone, we can’t know if we have the full fact pattern, or if any of the Follower’s ideas would make the outcome even better.
Advocating our own ideas, with our own beliefs and assumptions, we have no way of knowing how our Followers will interpret our plan given their beliefs, experiences and assumptions, or how our suggestions would match their system, their culture, their norms.
We can’t know the perceived risks our Followers face.
We run the risk of pushback and resistance when we work from our own ideas and try to get buy-in from folks who will touch the final solution but haven’t been included in the planning.

Even with an aim to be inclusive, we too often try to persuade Follwers to adopt the path we imagine. Due to the unknown risks to those involved with executing the solution, this outside-in approach might yield resistance at best; at worst, it not only restricts the full range of possible outcomes, but runs the risk of causing resistance, hostility and sabotage.

LEADING AND FOLLOWING ARE INTERDEPENDENT

During the 2020 election I heard Presidential Candidate and Senator Amy Klobuchar say: “I haven’t gone on TV for interviews much before now. But my team told me I needed the exposure. So here I am.” Obviously, she’s the Leader AND the Follower.

When Leaders rely on their own assumptions, ideas, and expertise, to generate client solutions, it’s difficult to achieve an optimal result: until Followers are included in developing their own vision from the start using their ideas, knowledge, values and voices; until the group works collaboratively to develop creative outcomes that they can all buy into, the outcome will be restricted and potentially not implemented.

So here’s the question: do you want to facilitate Followers through a route through to their own best result? Or drive the path to the result you’ve imagined? You can’t do both.

What would you need to believe differently to trust you can achieve the best outcome if it’s driven by the Followers?
What is a Leader’s role if the Followers are in charge of the route to a successful outcome?

I believe that leading and following are two sides of the same coin. And I believe it must be not only an interdependent process, but a systemic one based on the foundational norms, beliefs, and history of the Follower’s system.

CONTROL

I once trained a group of executive Leaders at a company with a reputation of having values. They were the most manipulative group I’ve ever trained. Getting them to consider any form of leadership that didn’t involve them having total control was a herculean task. Seeing my frustration one of them said: “But our message is values-based. Of COURSE it’s our job to convince them to do it our way! It’s the RIGHT way.” Having a great outcome does not give license to push our agendas to get it done OUR way.

I suggest that Leaders must help Others discover their own goals and facilitate them through to execution.

But to do so requires we give up our egos, our needs for control, our perceived value of being ‘right’, of being The One to exert power and influence. We obviously need to have some sort of control given we’ve got a job to do. But control over what?

To work collaboratively with Followers to formulate a goal, help define their process of getting there, then oversee the 13 steps of change that result in implementation, a Leader

leads Followers through their risks of change,
controls the space that enables all voices to be heard, giving rise to a complete data set, creativity, buy-in, collaboration, and mutual responsibility for planning and delivery;
leads the group through forming, failure, discovery and confusion, trials and success;
guides the group through the route they designed and helps them maintain equilibrium.

Here I’m reminded of another great Argentine Tango expression: The Leader opens the door; the Follower dances through using her own unique steps; the leader follows.

STRUCTURE VS CONTENT; CONTEXT VS COMPONENTS

I contend that as Leaders we must assure results and hand over the behavior changes, the goal setting, the risk management, the buy-in, the creation of new rules and norms to the Followers.

Let’s look at the two components, the goal and the route, from a systems perspective.

Sample

If leading a team through an initiative to enhance customer service, for example, the Leader is responsible for ending up with happier customers and supervising the journey to get there, while the Followers are responsible for

the route taken to get there,
the choice of the components of the new services,
what these services will do, the planning during the change and ultimate buy-in, and the rules that will maintain them,
ensuring buy-in and collaboration from the team,
what each team member will do,
how it will be delivered.

Unfortunately, leaders too often try to control both the goal and the journey. But I suggest we separate the functions. When Followers control the journey they create a collaboration amongst themselves, develop behaviors and outcomes, understand and manage their risks, and take ownership of the journey to success. The Leader then maintains what the Followers created.

STARTING UP A COMPANY AS A LEADER/FOLLOWER

I’d like to share a story of my own journey as an entrepreneur of a tech start up in London in 1983. I began with no knowledge of business and even less of technology (Those were early days, remember?). I was smart enough to know my range of content knowledge – nil. So I wrote an outline of what I wanted to achieve:

a company that would take great care of the needs of customers in the area of 4^th Generation Languages (Really early days!) with integrity, honesty, and win/win values;
be seen as a premier provider by charging high prices and great service expertise;
hire folks who will create out-of-the-box services that enhance what’s considered possible.
have staff be as happy and cared for as clients;
make money and have fun.

That was my goal. I had no idea what data I needed or what the journey would be. I did my best to research, speak with people, read a few books. Then I realized that it would be best if I hired good people who designed their own jobs.

My hiring process included asking applicants to bring in a P&L that included their salary and their vision of how they’d do the job. I hired those with the most creative ideas, and we ended up providing very unique and customer-driven programming, training, and consulting services, making us the most innovative company in our market.

The applicant for the job of receptionist was quite creative. Ann Marie wanted a small salary and a percentage of the gross income. For this, she would make sure the company ran efficiently and staff and clients would be thoroughly taken care of to the point they wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. Wow. I hired her. And she did exactly what she said.

She made us write these daily TOADs – I don’t remember what the acronym stood for…something like Take what you want And Destroy the rest… but it took us an extra hour each night to write them up (No computers in daily use in the early 80s, remember?). Each morning we had to read the full set of everyone’s TOADS on our desks when we arrived. They involved current initiatives, our frustrations, any good/bad issues with clients and prospects, any good/bad issues we had with each other.

As a result, all of us knew ‘everything’. If a phone would ring and the person wasn’t there to answer, anyone could answer it and be able to help. As the receptionist, Ann Marie would make every caller feel cared for and comfortable. Office squabbles and gossip didn’t have a way to fester. Team members became familiar with problems faced by colleagues and came up with creative solutions. We had the knowledge to introduce clients to each other for follow-on partnerships.

Frankly, Ann Marie terrified me. Tall, officious, unsmiling, we all did what she told us to do (Talk about leaders!). And she walked away with pockets full of money as she helped the business double each year.

I hired John as a ‘Make Nice Guy’ to bridge the divide between technical and people skills. He wanted a $100,000 salary (in 1985!) to make sure techies, their code, and how our contractors maintained relationships with the teams they worked with, all ran smoothly. That was a no brainer. And another role I hadn’t known I needed to hire for.

With John taking care of all outside stuff, I had no fires, no problems, no crashes, no personality issues, no client problems, and I could grow my business. He even found out when a client was buying new software that we could support well before it arrived on site; when the vendor came to install it, my folks were there waiting, well before the vendor tried to sell their services.

The team worked hard to get me to say “We’re doing WHAT??” I was once walking down the hall and ran into my Training Manager. When I asked where he’d been hiding since I hadn’t seen him in days, he told me he was busy scouting out extra office space for the new training programs being developed. “We’re doing WHAT??”

And fill the seats he did, bringing in new clients and new programs. Including me as a trainer. Apparently, the team believed I supervised techies so well as a non-techie that I should teach other non-techie managers how to supervise their techie staff. I would never have thought of that myself. So they got me to run monthly programs which were always packed.

As part of my commitment to creativity and growth, I told the management team to take risks but to let me know if a disaster was imminent at least three feet before they fell off the edge (If they waited until they were already off the cliff there wouldn’t be a thing I could do but wave). And they did. As a result they took risks, created out-of-the-box programs, processes, and initiatives that I could never have dreamed of. And they mostly got it right.

By setting a tone of authenticity, I regularly discussed my failures and got input from the team as to how to make things better. This obviously opened the door for us all to discuss failures as part of our job. Also by maintaining control of the values and integrity of communication and relationships, by trusting the staff and enabling them to be Leaders and innovators, I was able to double the company income every year.

As a start-up in a new field, with no computers, no internet, no email, no websites, we had a $5,000,000 revenue (and 42% net profit) within four years. Everyone made money, loved coming to work, and grew individually. We controlled 11% of the market (the other 26 competitors shared the other 89%), had loads of fun, and we changed the landscape of what was possible.

TRUST

I could never, ever have been that successful if I hadn’t trusted my Followers to create their jobs in a way that met my values. I controlled the goal. They controlled the journey. Win/win. Interdependent. Trust. Respect. Their joke was that they were the ones with the brains, and I was the one with the mouth. Cool beans. I opened the door, they danced through it, and I followed.

Leadership is an interdependent process with Followers and Leaders working together from the inside and outside simultaneously to inspire trust and reach the best possible outcome. Here are the givens:

The process is always transforming and dynamic, rendering pockets of success, confusion and failure, creativity;
There’s no way to know until the end what the trip will include so it’s necessary to build in trust, collaboration, and openness;
The result will be what everyone wants. The process of getting there will be different from what the Leader envisaged;
The process will proceed according to the values, creativity, and needs of the Followers;
The Leader will be respected so long as s/he uses her/his power to shepherd the process;
Failure is part of the process and can be used to inspire creativity;
Resistance will be visible early and managed by group with no fallout;
The result will be the best amalgam of everyone involved bringing their values and hearts.

A real Leader enables their Followers to operate interdependently, using their own values, their own creativity, their own vision. As Leaders we must stop trying to exert influence over the entire process and begin trusting Followers to lead us.

For companies seeking additional training to enable their Leaders to facilitate true change, please let me know. I’ve developed ways to listen and question that avert bias and indeed facilitate transformation and expanded possibility. Sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com, https://sharondrew1.substack.com/, and https://medium.com/@sharondrew_9898/. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen November 10th, 2025

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