You Can’t Lead If You Can’t Follow

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 as the ‘follower’, usually a woman’s role in dance. 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 is to set the tone, and enable our followers to create a path to a successful goal. As they say in Argentine Tango, if you notice the leader, he’s not doing his job.

WHAT IS OUR JOB

With unconscious blinkers, limited by our biases and assumptions, leaders often begin with a plan, an idea, a fantasy if you will, of how to achieve an outcome. We then work at creating and driving the path to execute it. But this strategy faces several unknowns:

1. We really have no way of knowing beforehand if it could succeed.
2. We don’t know the follower’s unspoken beliefs, creative capabilities, or dynamics, how their process factors in, or the range of ideas they might come up with if encouraged.

Even with an aim to be inclusive, we too often carry our plan into the initial sessions with the group and, maybe unconsciously, try to persuade them to adopt the path we imagine. This route might yield resistance at best; at worst, it restricts the full range of possible outcomes.

I recently 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.” Was she the follower? Or the leader? While smart enough to be considered to be leader of the free world, she didn’t have the foresight of her team to expand her publicity. That makes her the leader AND the follower.

I contend that as leaders using our own assumptions, ideas, and expertise, it’s not possible to achieve an optimal result: until followers develop their own values, vision, and voices; until the group discovers a path through their own group dynamics; until the group works collaboratively to develop creative outcomes that they can all buy into; there’s no condition for success as the outcome will be restricted.

So here’s the question: do you want to facilitate a route through to the 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 your 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 an interdependent process.

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.

As leaders, we must 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?

There are two components to our job: reaching a goal, and getting there; we cannot control both unless we do it alone. To work with a group of followers, I suggest we manage the goal and supervision of the journey through change; the process of getting there, the details and actions along the route, must be managed by the followers. It’s an interdependent process. On a day-to-day basis that means the leader

• controls the space that will enable all voices to be heard, giving rise to creativity, collaboration, and mutual responsibility for planning and delivery;
• leads the group through forming, failure and resistance, 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 we must assure results, but hand over the control of the journey to the followers.

Let’s look at the two components, the goal and the route, from a systems perspective. Considering the result we seek to achieve from the viewpoint of the structure – the context, the boundaries that define the goal – the goal is clear and unadorned. The structure is the headline that identifies what’s within, so a headline that reads: Sandals are Worn in Summer, would have an article about shoes, not recipes for spaghetti.

I refer to the components within the structure as the content – the details, the story line, the items that fit within the parameters of that specific structure. Using the above headline, the content might include different types of sandals, shoes worn in summer vs those worn in winter.

Another simple example would be the structure defines the size and use of a room, while the content includes the size and type of furniture that will fit into it; so an 8’ by 10’ room to be used as a bedroom would not hold a 12’x12’ living room couch.

The structure strictly limits, controls, defines, and identifies the content. Any content is acceptable so long as it fits within the confines of the structure.

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 to get there, and the rules that will maintain them,
• what each team member will do,
• how it will be delivered.

Here’s the deal: we can only have real control over a single factor – the structure OR the content. Sadly, leaders too often try to control both. The real control and power is in controlling the structure:

• By controlling the structure, any components that fit would be acceptable so long as they clearly meet the goal’s criteria. By controlling the structure, we’re a problem seeking a solution. If we have a 3 foot box, we can choose whatever we want to put into it – balls or bananas – so long as it fits. Improved customer service might mean more reps, better phone coverage, more focused email responses, year-end gifts, better website access. Humana offers televisits for patients who can’t get to a doctor’s offices. Whatever fits, whatever the group agrees to within the parameters of the structure, is up for discussion. The content will correspond with the structure.
• By controlling the content, by focusing on the components, it’s necessary to find a structure that confines them. We become a solution looking for a problem – obviously limiting the field of possibilities. With 12 green 10” balls, we need a very specific-sized box. Using our example, we might train reps to answer phones by the third ring and lower prices; then must define a goal to match that. And of course the full range of options for improving customer service would be overlooked. Obviously, starting from the components, the content, is the less flexible, less creative route.

It’s by controlling the structure we can plant a stake in the ground with the rules and criteria for success that all else emanates from. Our job then becomes to maintain the tone and vision; how we get there is the job of the followers, tasked with creating the content.

When followers control the content, they create a collaboration amongst themselves, use their combined imaginations to develop a set of behaviors and outcomes that will fit within the rules and structure, and take ownership of the process and journey to success. Each follower is a leader who buys-in to the change and process, owns the solution, manages any resistance, and takes responsibility for implementation. The leader then maintains the space 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. 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 (the structure):

• 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;
• have my staff be as happy and cared for as my clients;
• make money and have fun.

That was my structure. I had no idea what would be in the content. 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 the route, within the confines of their job and the structure I put forth, to getting their salary AND bringing in a profit for the company. We ended up providing programming, training, and consulting services to users and teams. But I didn’t know that when I started.

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 and would have the time to do their best job. 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 found 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 of us all knowing ‘everything’, on any given day, 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 take the time to make kind comments to whoever was calling, making every caller feel wanted and comfortable. Office squabbles and gossip didn’t have a way to fester as we knew who was mad at who and the argument dissipated. Team members helped each other by coming up with creative solutions, or sharing resource. 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. With John taking care of all outside stuff, I was left with 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. “I’m doing WHAT??” 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 created unique 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 my maintaining control of the structure, by trusting the staff and enabling them to be leaders and innovators, I was able to double the company income every year. 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. I controlled the structure. They controlled the content. 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 will not be 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 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.

THE HOW

If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you know that I always include a ‘how’ so readers can use the ideas I espouse. In this case, my suggestions will be a bit challenging: the necessary skills to implement this style of leadership includes rethinking and enhancing two skills we all believe we’re good at and take great pride in – our listening and our questioning.

The reality is that no matter how professional, how fair, how honorable, how impartial we believe ourselves to be, when we use our conventional questioning and listening skills there’s a high probability we’ll be (unconsciously, unwittingly, automatically) biased by our words, ideas, needs, beliefs, and history. I’ve developed ways to listen and question that avert bias and indeed facilitate transformation and expanded possibility. I train these skills to leaders when I train in organization

1.    Listening. The biggest problem is that it’s just not possible to listen without bias no matter how hard we try to show up as good listeners, or how carefully we listen to every word. We just cannot separate our intent from our physiology.

Words, as sounds, come into our ears as electrical/chemical signals, devoid of meaning. Simplistically, these signals go down neural pathways in our brains to find the nearest synapses that carry similar signals – assumed, sometimes wrongly, to be a match, regardless of the accuracy of the underlying meaning. So our brains might find a match with ABL when the speaker actually said ABC. Listeners actually hear ABL with no recognition that there’s a misunderstanding; our brains don’t tell us it omitted D, E, F, G… Net net, we unwittingly listen with biased ears and ‘hear’ what our brains tell us has been said…often some degree ‘off’ of the speaker’s intended message.

There is a way to mitigate this. (My book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? teaches how.) By listening in Observer/Coach, on “the ceiling” we supersede our normal neural pathways and enable our brains to find a more accurate match. Using normal listening, it’s only possible to hear what is most comfortable and habitual. For those who don’t get a chance to read the book and learn how to listen to whole conversations without bias, I suggest you at least take this shortcut and say: “I want to make sure I understand you accurately. I’m going to tell you what I think I heard; can you please tell me if I’ve got it right and correct me where I’m wrong?” That will keep the conversation on track.

2.    Questioning. Conventional questions elicit information as per the Asker’s curiosity. Of course given our unconscious biases, our curiosity is restricted by our beliefs and life histories, resulting in questions limited to what we think we need to know (certainly not the full universe of available information). It goes without saying that there’s no way an outsider can know what’s going on within someone else’s life experience. It’s even more difficult within a group setting. Hence, normal questions can only gather information that’s some fraction of what we need, and an unknown level of accuracy.

Of course often people need information to act from, and normal questions are necessary. But for those times change is part of the process, people/followers need to understand their own motivation, values, and beliefs to act from. For this I invented a new form of question called a Facilitative Question that makes it possible to enable Others to mentally (unconsciously) aggregate their own values and needs to make their own best decisions, define their own outcomes, recognize their own success criteria, and chart their own next steps, with no bias or influence from the leader.

So: Why do you wait for six rings before answering the phone? would be replaced with What would need to be willing/able to answer an incoming call by the third ring? Instead of gathering information, facilitate people through to their own actionable answer and non-resistant choice, using their own criteria. Used in a group setting this process enhances creativity and responsibility for action.

For those wishing to learn how to formulate these questions, read this article, and take a look at this learning module I developed. Formulating Facilitative Questions employs listening for systems, understanding word usage and word placement, and the sequence of decision making in the brain. A much different process than posing normal questions.

As leaders, our job is to facilitate a collaboration with our followers to interdependently create a successful goal. It demands that leaders enter with a different outcome, a different mindset, and a different tool kit. But it’s worth it. We’ll end up with the real power of spearheading harmony, integrity, creativity, and excellence. And have a greater success than we ever could have achieved alone.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a thought leader, original thinker, consultant, trainer, and speaker. Sharon Drew trains leadership teams and sales forces. She is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew’s award winning blog www.sharondrewmorgen.com carries original articles on topics such as sales, leadership, decision making, questions, collaboration, and values.

Sharon Drew is the inventor of Buying Facilitation® the first new paradigm that gives sales people, healthcare professionals, leaders, and managers, the tools to enable others to generate real change based on their own internal beliefs, rules, systems, and vision. She has spent her life decoding how brains decide and how to generate real change at the core neurology of synapses and neural pathways. She has also designed innovative training models to facilitate learners in producing permanent change. Sharon Drew lives on a houseboat in Portland OR.

Sharon Drew Morgen December 12th, 2022

Posted In: News

The Two Buying Processes: the Buy Side and the Sell Side

When I coined the term Buying Process in 1987 I was describing the change management steps people take between having a problem and self-identifying as buyers. In other words, the Buy Side.

Over the years the sales industry has (mis)translated the term to refer to how people choose a solution. In other words, the Sell Side.

The Buy Side and Sell Side have different goals and journeys: before self-identifying as buyers, people/groups must assemble stakeholders, try workarounds, figure out the risk of disruption and get buy in (Buy Side). It’s wholly different from how, when and if they choose a product (the Sell Side).

Buying is a change management problem (Buy Side) before it’s a solution choice (Sell Side) issue. Both should be addressed in order to both find and facilitate folks who will become buyers (the Buy Side) and help now-self-identified buyers choose their solutions (the Sell Side).

By overlooking facilitating the (Buy Side) Buying Process, by narrowing the search for buyers to those who’ll listen to product details or seem to have a ‘need’ (the Sell Side), the sales industry overlooks 80% of potential buyers. As a result, sales closes a small fraction of possible buyers. I believe the field is using the wrong metric and chasing the wrong target (‘Need’).

LOOKING FOR PROSPECTS IN THE WRONG PLACE

Buyers aren’t where sales is looking for them. It’s like that old joke about folks looking for lost keys where the light is instead of where they lost them. Sure, sales continues to find new and better ways to push solutions. But that’s not where or how people buy especially now with the internet.

People become buyers when they have no other choice AND can tolerate the risk of doing something different (a purchase); if the risk (the disruption, the change involved) is too high they’ll stay the same regardless of need. Here’s one of my Morgenisms: People don’t want to buy anything, merely resolve a problem at the least cost to the system.

Selling and buying require two different sets of actions. By only focusing on one portion of the buying decision process, sales overlooks the vast numbers of not-yet-self-identified buyers who really need help figuring out their unique systemic change issues. And unfortunately, the approach to facilitating the Buy Side Buying Process isn’t through any thinking, tools, or goals used to sell a solution. And it’s not about ‘need’.

A ‘NEED’ FOCUS CAUSES FAILURE

I have a few questions for you: Do you need to stop watching so much TV and exercise more? Do you need to shed 10 pounds? Do you need to be kinder to your employees? See? Need is NOT the metric used by folks who will become buyers! Your 5% close rate should tell you something is wrong. People buy when

• everyone (even peripherally involved), and everything (policies, projects, leadership) agrees there’s a problem that needs resolving;
• they’ve tried everything they know to resolve it and nothing worked;
• they fully understand the risks – the cost – to the system and find them manageable;
• everyone who will touch the final solution buys in to doing something different.

Here’s why a ‘need’ focus causes sales to fail:

• You get few meetings with few in attendance, and then don’t hear back.

o  What ‘weight’ did the folks in the meeting have on the final decision team?
o  How many folks needed your solution but wouldn’t take a meeting?
o  Who took the meeting and why? Have they tried workarounds yet?
o  What will they use your presentation content for?
o  Where are they in their Buy Side Buying Process?

• • • When you facilitate folks through their complete change process (Buy Side Buying Process), you’ll help them discover who to assemble, how to find workarounds to try, and how to assess risk and manage buy in according to their unique environments. THEN they all want to meet with you and bring 10 people to the meeting.
• You’re posing biased questions based on what you sell and miss important data.

o  Your questions are biased according to what you think would make them a prospect, hence miss the underlying (systemic) reasons they haven’t resolved the problem yet and where they really need your help and your differentiation point.

• • • Facilitative Questions help them uncover their own idiosyncratic route to a problem resolution and buy in without bias.
    • Your ‘need’ focus causes you to assume far, far more people are prospects and you spend large amounts of time chasing folks who will never buy. Remember: People cannot buy unless they understand the risk of change. It’s not about their problem or the efficacy of your solution.
• With a ‘need’ focus you’ll get one person’s restricted viewpoint and mistakenly believe she’s a buyer.

o  It’s possible someone is speaking with you only because she’s the only one who wants change and using your call to collect data points.

• • • When you only seek need, you really have no idea of the accuracy of the person’s answers, or their reason to speak with you.
    • When you only seek need, you miss people doing their discovery and not yet ready to self-identify as buyers.
    • When you only seek need, you don’t understand the entire fact pattern the problem sits in and don’t recognize folks who could never buy.
• You have no idea if the person you’re speaking with represents a real opportunity.

o  Has he been directed to contact vendors because the team is ready to choose? or just doing research? Has the whole team self-identified as buyers?

• • • By assuming folks talk to you because they have a ‘need’ you’re overlooking the systems/change management issues that must be resolved before they’re even buyers and wasting a lot of time pushing products they can’t buy.
    • By assuming folks have a need, you’re restricting your close rate to 5% and wasting 95% of your time.
• You have no idea what stage folks are at in their (Buy Side) Buying Process?

o  Have they assembled all (ALL) the stakeholders? Know the full fact pattern of the problem (only happens toward the end of the Buying Process when all factors are discernable)? Have they tried workarounds? Do they know the type of risk they face if they purchase? Do the stakeholders buy in to the risk?

• • • Until or unless they’ve gone through all change management stages (i.e. the Buy Side Buying Process), they are not buyers, regardless of what you think they need.

The sales model is so focused on placing solutions, on sharing information sellers believe prospects need to hear, that they miss the real Buying Decision Path: just because you think they have a ‘need’ doesn’t mean they’re ready willing or able to buy.

STEPS TO BUYING ARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT BASED

Until they realize they cannot fix the problem themselves AND everyone recognizes that the cost of the fix is less than the cost of staying the same, they will not, cannot, buy. And when you don’t hear back, they’re not facing indecision: they’re merely involved in their change management process and not yet buyers. And unless the risk of the change is less than the cost of staying the same, they’d rather stay the same and avoid the disruption.

Sellers can help would-be buyers traverse their decision path – their Buy Side Buying Process – BEFORE trying to sell them anything and help them become buyers very quickly. After all, they must do this anyway, with or without you: until they accept the risk that a new solution brings, they aren’t buyers anyway. That leaves you selling to the low hanging fruit (the 5%) rather than helping the 80% manage their Buy Side decision process.

Before considering themselves buyers, all people must mitigate the steps between problem recognition and risk management. Until people manage their front-end change management piece (the first 9 steps of a 13 step change process, or, um, Buying Process) they ARE NOT BUYERS and will ignore any attempt at being sold to!

The sales industry must shift their thinking to facilitate the Buy Side as a precursor to selling. I know the field has recognized the need to do so, but unfortunately still uses the same tools and sales thinking to try to get there!

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

Buying is risk management. Selling is product placement – two different sets of things to handle for two different sets of problems.

Unfortunately, facilitating people through their discovery of risk is not based on a solution, or need, or features and functions, but on a different metric entirely: neither the sales model nor the solutions themselves can help with the Buy Side Buying Process. Buying is first about change:

Buying represents change in the underlying system that includes people, policies, initiatives, jobs, budgets etc.

Change represents disruption. It must be addressed and bought into by everyone it will disrupt.

A purchase represents an unknowable risk to the system.

And sellers, as outsiders, cannot ever understand what their idiosyncratic issues are.

I’ve written extensively on this for decades. Terms that I’ve coined as part of the Buy Side Buying Process (‘stakeholders’ ‘workarounds’ ‘Buying Decision Team’) have been mistranslated, and now endemic in the sales vocabulary, but unfortunately applied only on the Sell Side. Buying Facilitation® finds those on route to becoming buyers and leads them through their change steps.

BUYING FACILITATION® FOR THE BUY SIDE

When I started up my tech company in 1983 and became a buyer after being a very successful seller, I realized the problem with sales: as an entrepreneur with problems to solve, I didn’t even think of making a purchase until I assembled the full set of stakeholders and knew the full fact pattern, tried everything familiar to fix it, and understood the disruption an external solution would cause.

I invented Buying Facilitation® to facilitate folks through their change management steps on route to becoming real buyers. It works WITH sales but isn’t sales. It’s change based, not product sell based. In my Buying Facilitation® training programs I teach how to facilitate change as the precursor to selling. Participants go on to close 40% against their control groups that close (on average) 5.4%. When I trained my own sellers to find folks on route to change, our closed business improved by a factor of eight.

Buying Facilitation® uses wholly different tools and goals, starting with prospecting for people seeking to resolve a problem – people in their Buying Process – that the seller’s solution can resolve. It includes:

• Facilitative Questions: a wholly new form of question in invented (Took me 10 years!) that leads Others through their elements of systemic change.
• Listening for systems: a way to listen for systemic problems (leadership, ancient corporate rules, etc.) instead of seek what I wanted to hear.
• The steps of change: the 13 steps all people must traverse before they agree to any change. Sales enters at step 10 when folks are ready to buy. They can enter at step one and lead folks efficiently through their change issues.

Buying Facilitation® finds people on route to becoming buyers ON THE FIRST CALL when your goal is to find folks changing in the area you solution can serve. It’s a generic change facilitation model used also by coaches and leadership. It has nothing to do with buying or selling per se. And yet it facilitates real change.

Below I’ve included a few articles I’ve written on the subject. Go to www.sharon-drew.com, read the section Helping Buyers Buy, and go to the categories Sales, Buying Facilitation® in my blog section and start reading. Then call me. I’ll teach you.

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‘No Decision’ is not Indecision

What is Buying Facilitation® and What Sales Problem Does it Solve

The Real Buyer’s Journey: the reason selling doesn’t cause buying

How, Why, and When Buyers Buy

A View from the Buy Side

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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 October 3rd, 2022

Posted In: News

Our Brains Cause Resistance: why change management initiatives get opposed

After listening to folks complaining about getting resistance during a needed change initiative, I decided to write an article explaining how resistance gets triggered from our brain. You see, people don’t make a conscious choice to resist; their brains are perceiving risk and automatically rebelling as protection. As I’ll explain, it’s possible to avoid resistance altogether. But we’d have to alter the way we’re going about change.

I’ll begin by saying that behaviors don’t just pop up, arise like Venus from the sea. Before we ‘do’ anything our brain goes through a series of neurological, biological, and electro-chemical reactions that automatically trigger and instruct behaviors.

Everything we do, think, see, feel originates in our brains, including our behaviors. And in current change management models, we overlook the brain bit. Resistance is caused by brain chemistry; to avoid it we’ll need to think differently about how we construct our change initiatives.

RESISTANCE IS A (WRONGLY) ASSUMED CONSEQUENCE OF CHANGE

I’ll begin by naming the elephant in the room: ‘resistance management’ has become integral to change management. Frankly, my ideas in this article may cause resistance because they go beyond perceived wisdom and current academic research which both concentrate on behavior change rather than where behaviors get triggered in the brain. And because it’s believed to be endemic, resistance is naturally incorporated into change practices.

A friend of mine (a Harvard professor and MacArthur Genius) was writing a book on how to manage resistance. When I sent back my edits following his request to look at his draft, he opposed my ideas about avoiding resistance altogether: “This is just aspirational thinking, Sharon-Drew. Resistance is endemic no matter what models you use.” As I said, it’s built in.

Remember the adage: if you always do what you’ve always done you always get what you’ve always got? Indeed, the expression “change is hard” has become the perceived wisdom and various forms of coercion (persuasion, convincer strategies, rewards, manipulation) have cropped up to mitigate it.

In John P Kotter’s change bible Leading Change he says it’s necessary to ‘win hearts and minds’,

encourage them to make sacrifices to support the change and persuade them that the change is achievable and that the rewards are beneficial to both the business and themselves.

In other words, resistance is such an integral part of the change culture that the reason it occurs is overlooked. We assume:

• change is hard (It’s not hard. We’re just approaching it as a behavior change issue rather a brain triggering problem.);
• there will be obstacles (The existing norms and current activities have been the status quo. To make a change, a new set of norms must be developed that match the values of the old, and those involved in the status quo must determine this.).
• the efficacy of ‘urgency’ to involve Others (We ask folks to adopt OUR urgency without helping them design something THEY feel urgency around and then push them to full OUR needs!);
• when change is led by someone respected, Others will be compliant soldiers (Think of your mom telling you to wear that horrid outfit to Grandma’s. Nope. And it’s not about the clothes.);
• all will go smoothly once we win ‘hearts and minds’ (The initiatives created may not match THEIR hearts and minds!).

Resistance is avoidable and change is not hard at all. We’re just doing it wrong.

In this article I’ll explain how our brains cause our reactions/responses, and how conventional change processes cause the very resistance it works to overcome.

WE UNCONSCIOUSLY RESIST WHEN OUR IDENTITY IS THREATENED

Let me say a bit about my mindset and thinking. I’ve dedicated my life to developing change facilitation models used in coaching, behavior change, and sales that enable mind-brain connections to have conscious choice over our unconscious behaviors. Along the way I’ve discovered that our brain neurology is set up to create and maintain our core identities; as such, all of our actions and responses, attitudes and convictions are nothing more than unconscious, automatic outputs of who we are. To explain how we end up resisting, I’ll begin by introducing you to how we ‘be’ who we are.

Each of us is an amalgam of generations of family history, education, religion, friends, employment, life experience. Together, these mental models – the system of ‘me’, or SOM – carry electro-chemical signals (without meaning) that link together as neural circuits, or ‘cell assemblies’, that inform our actions: the way we look at, judge, and operate in the world; our assumptions, our politics. They inform our identity, our values, our beliefs. And signals from these circuits instruct our choices, our behaviors, in a way that maintains our system.

All of us act, make choices, decide from our mental models, our SOM; our behaviors arise unconsciously and automatically to represent and maintain who we are. In other words, we’re always ‘doing’ who we are, making us all victims of our unconscious.

Personally, I’ve been a liberal and activist since my first protest as a freshman in college when I chained myself to a crane and ended up in jail (Mother: ‘You’re calling from WHERE?’). I’ve continued my liberal activity during my life, taking great pride in who I am, believing fervently that my map of the world is the ‘right’ one. I’ll defend this to my death, regardless of what anyone else wants me to do, regardless of whether I’m considered right or wrong. I’ve lost jobs, book deals, friends, husbands, rather than make choices that will put my core identity, my SOM, at risk. I think I’ve been ‘right’ more often than not. But I’ve always respected my unique system, made the best choices I knew how to make based on my values, and followed my vision. It’s who I am.

And so we all are: our behaviors – our choices, our actions, our unconscious automatic triggers – are our beliefs in action. It’s here we must begin when considering resistance.

HOW BRAINS CAUSE BEHAVIORS

Given we are always DOing who we are, let me explain (in simplified fashion) how our brain accomplishes this so you’ll see how defiance might be a natural, albeit unconscious, choice.

Behaviors are the end result of several neural processes, generated from a sequence of neurological, biological, and electro-chemical actions that get triggered by incoming vibrations (as words, thoughts, messages, instruction). Here’s the sequence in words:

• input vibrations (all sound/words enters ears without meaning) that get
• filtered, massaged, shortened and
• automatically turned to signals
• that get dispatched among
• 86 billion neurons, 1,000 trillion neural connections to seek a match
• with ‘similar-enough’ cell assemblies that then
• translate the signals uniquely and
• send instructions to act (behave).

Here’s another way to explain what happens from start (input) to an action (output):

Input (message, vibration) -> Filters (Beliefs, norms) -> CUE (Signal creation) -> CEN (Dispatch to ‘similar-enough’ existing circuits) ->Output (Behavior, action, decision)

For those who want more detail, here’s a video of me explaining the entire process of how we make decisions with visuals.

Notice that the input (message) and the filters (beliefs, norms) drive the output (behavior). It’s impossible to have an output without an input that triggers it. Indeed, everything we do, think, feel, see, hear has been instructed by our neurology. An easy way to think of this is how Alzheimer’s sufferers die because their brain forgets to instruct their organs.

BEHAVIORS ARE BELIEFS IN ACTION

Resistance begins at the input stage: If the incoming instructions, the initiatives and goals we provide at the start, match the norms/values/beliefs of the existing system being targeted, the filters will accept it.

If the incoming message is in conflict with the system, the filters (automatically, unconsciously) discard, mistranslate, or resist it. It’s biologic and of out awareness, an act performed by dopamine.

Since our unconscious brain is the instigation point that causes us to ‘do’ who we are, our behaviors arise from the way our brain translates (mistranslates) incoming vibrations (words, messages). So a behavior is nothing more than a response, the output of a chain of events set up to comply with the norms and values of the system – the person – they represent. Behaviors (outputs) are the very last element that arise from a string of commands from our brain.

Simply put: When people receive inputs that are out of alignment with their SOM, they resist. Resistance is merely a reaction from the part of the brain that thinks it’s at risk. It has nothing to do with intent. It’s not malicious. It’s neurologic.

This is what we overlook during change initiatives: when we get an unwanted reaction from an initiative, we end up trying to change a behavior by trying to change a behavior – push change from an output that’s already been programmed! It’s like trying to change a chair into a table!

Unfortunately, by the time there’s a reaction it’s too late. Here’s my podcast series on change without resistance.

It is possible, however, to avoid the problem altogether. To get a different response, a new output, we just need to create a different input.

STAKEHOLDERS MUST DESIGN THE INITIATIVE

To make sure new directives are approved, carried out, and enlist buy-in; to make sure we achieve goals that produce Excellence; our change initiatives must comply with people’s mental models and personal beliefs or the brain thinks it’s at risk and balks to protect the system.

When leadership tries to elicit behaviors before enlisting the brain circuits that protect the SOM, the belief-based filters that check incoming messages will discard or resist anything that doesn’t match the existing norms of the system.

There’s a simple way to fix this problem, but I’m going to ask that you don’t resist what I’m saying out-of-hand: We can bring in the stakeholders, the folks who will be performing the new initiative, before the initiatives are developed, before the goals have been established and have them design the initiative. (Note: no problem set can be fully understood without the input, the knowledge. of the entire stakeholder body anyway.)

This ensures that the values, the SOM, of the stakeholders will become part of the new initiative and the brain will happily generate the new behaviors with passion and creativity, responsibility and ownership. And no resistance!

By starting with a goal in mind, by beginning with outcomes and targets and proposed action, by designing initiatives to conscientiously overcome resistance by including users somewhere – too late! – in the process, current change management models unwittingly instigate the very resistance they seek to overcome.

And note: it’s not possible to attempt to ‘gather data’ to capture the SOMs to include in the initiative as the both the questions and answers will be biased by the direction already set; and conventional questions don’t get into the unconscious anyway.

Everyone involved (or a very comprehensive set of representatives) must sit down together – maybe for an offsite day with an outside consultant – and brainstorm ideas, needs, fears, feelings, job descriptions, collective goals, and dreams.

I’d even suggest there be only representation from leadership, with the bulk of the participation coming from the users. After all, folks in leadership have different jobs, different goals and viewpoints, different knowledge of the day-to-day ops, different SOMS than the managers and staff who will carry out the initiative.

A NEW GOAL: EXCELLENCE

Here are a few starter questions to create compliance and joy throughout the life of the initiative:

• What’s the best idea, the best aspiration, to begin from that will result in goals that match the beliefs, the integrity, the vision, of those who will carry out the change?
• What if we begin with a goal of Excellence, not specific actions?
• How can we design initiatives in a way that expands possibility and invites buy-in, creativity and vision over time?

Will goals be met in the exact way the leadership team originally envisaged? Nope. But they never are anyway. The goals will be met, just differently and with long-term follow through and universal buy-in.

I’ve written extensively on this and developed several models and tools that create comprehensive teams, unearth the SOMs, and design goals and action items that lead to Excellence far beyond anything originally envisaged. Please contact me to either help you design a new initiative or coach you through one you’re currently involved with. Here’s how an article on how I’ve used my thinking in one industry (sales) to facilitate change and avoid resistance.

For now, here’s an example of how I enlisted the buy-in of a resister who wasn’t even compliant with the coach hired to help him keep his job.

EXAMPLE OF FACILITATING A RESISTER THROUGH TO CHANGE

I once got a call from a very noted coach (once on the cover of Inc Magazine) who had a problem he needed help solving. He had been hired by a senior manager (Susan) from a company going through change. She was having difficulty enlisting the agreement of one of their top, well-respected managers and asked Ed to coach the guy (Lou) to perform the new behaviors or he’d be fired. Ed said he’d tried for three months to get Lou to do what he’d been asked to do – set agreed-upon target actions and goals for Lou – only to have Lou miss deadlines and overlook entire segments of his agreements. Ed thought that maybe I’d have a different way to think about helping Lou and save him from losing his job.

Ed agreed to do a role play with me during which I used my facilitation process that targeted Lou’s underlying, baseline sentiments. With no real knowledge of what Lou would say, Ed responded using bits he’d heard from Lou. We had the following conversation (Note: I knew nothing about either Lou or the initiative.).

SD: Hi Lou. Before we begin, I’d like to thank you for being willing to speak. Seems you were not given a choice about speaking with me. Do I have your approval? I don’t want you to be forced to speak if you don’t want to.

Lou: You’re right. So much seems to be going on that I have no say about. But I know Susan is trying to help me keep my job. So I’m happy to speak. Thanks for asking.

SD: I hear both Susan and Ed have been trying to encourage you to take on new tasks and there seems to be a glitch in your uptake. What has stopped you from being comfortable doing what they need you to do?

Lou: I have some questions. I was hired to do my original job and I’ve done it well. Over the years I’ve come up with creative solutions, hired terrific people, and have been successful. I’ve gotten promoted and rewarded, and by now part of my identity is based on my success. Now they want me to do X. Who will take over my old job and do it as well as I did? Maintain the relationships with my staff and clients? And what happens to me? Given it’s a wholly new job description, how do I know I can do it? And no one will be teaching me because it hasn’t been done before. What happens if I don’t succeed? I’ve never been unsuccessful before. Seems they’ve given me a lose/lose situation. If I do what they want me to do, I’ll end up being fired for incompetency anyway.

SD: Wow. So you had no input into this new role before it was given to you, weren’t included in the creation and description of it, don’t know if you know how to do the work, don’t know how to be good at it, and might end up losing the success you had in your current job! That’s a lot. What has stopped you from telling this to Ed or Susan?

Lou: I tried to tell Susan but she told me they trusted me and just concentrate on doing the new job. But that didn’t handle my fears or loss of identity. When I started working with Ed he just gave me targets for each part of the new job and never discussed my personal challenges.

SD: Oh! So if Susan could make sure your current job will end up in good hands with continued great results, and you could have someone guide you through the new job with an agreed-upon learning curve, it would be easier for you.

Lou: Right. But I’d also need to have a say in how the new job is defined. As I can’t know what I don’t know before I start, I can’t know what would need to change in the job description they’ve provided. If I can have a say in how I will accomplish what they need accomplished, and have the time to get good at it, AND my original job is being done well, I have no problem being compliant.

When we were done, I asked Ed why he hadn’t considered my line of questioning since he apparently had all the data.

Ed: I heard him say those things, but because they seemed to have nothing to do with my job of getting him to ‘do’ the necessary behaviors, I ignored them!

This is a true story. How many people have been fired because they didn’t ‘do’ what they were told to do, and this type of conversation hadn’t occurred?

The belief that a change initiative must be agreed-with as per leadership’s vision has caused great harm in corporations and people. In 2004 I spoke with the then-CEO of Kinkos who traveled to all U.S. sites to visit 30,000 employees to announce the FedEx/Kinko’s merger. He used a multi-million-dollar deck to make his announcement. How did it go? You decide.

Kinkos: I had trouble convincing about 10% of them to get onboard.

SD: What happened to them?

Kinkos: It became a retention issue.

SD: You fired 3,000 people because they didn’t like your dog-and-pony show??

Kinkos: Yes, but it wasn’t a big loss. They were the folks who had been around from the beginning and were expendable.

He fired the very core, the very foundation of his business, the folks who carried the history and heart of the company, because he had no capability of enabling collaboration and a joint vision.

Indeed, there is a way to create productive routes to outcomes that carry passion, ongoing success, and happy people. I’ve dedicated my career to creating mind-brain, conscious-to-unconscious models that make systemic change possible and very easy. Contact me and we can 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 the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.    

Sharon Drew Morgen September 26th, 2022

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