News – Page 10 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

A participant at one of my onsite Buying Facilitation® trainings took me to his desk where he scrolled through pages of names of one-contact prospects who’d ignored his follow up attempts. “What do I do with all of these names? They’re buyers. How can I get them to take my call?”

I scrolled through the hundreds of names, noticed the many dates of attempted follow up after each name, and told him to give me his finger. “My finger?” “Yes”, I said. “Use it to press the delete key. You’re wasting your time.”

NEED DOES NOT EQUAL SALE

Doing what sales professionals are supposed to do, this salesman sought out potential prospects with a ‘need’ his solution could resolve, assuming need = prospect. With pages of names and untold wasted hours calling, calling, calling them back (time he could have used to find real buyers), valiantly seeking a sale among those he assumed most likely, there was something he wasn’t understanding: just because it seemed to him there was a fit, didn’t mean these people were buyers.

Walk this back with me: Sales professionals have been taught that a prospect is someone with a ‘need’ that matches the benefits of their solution – someone who SHOULD buy, or likely to be a candidate to buy – and with the ‘right’ course of action, they can convert this prospect to a buyer. But after years of coming up with ‘new’ sales methods, closing techniques, e-tools, etc. etc. that employ the ‘right’ approach to target prospects, introduce the content in the ‘best’ way with the most efficient messaging, and finding hundreds, thousands, with a supposed need who don’t buy, we know ‘need’ does not equal Sale.

The mystery to me is why we keep doing it and telling ourselves that, even with a 5% close rate, what we’re doing is working. Has it never occurred that just maybe we’re doing something wrong? The truth is, selling doesn’t cause buying. Yet we keep doing the same thing and accept as normal the low close rates and silence from those we deem buyers. Nothing in this process works efficiently. We

obviously can’t recognize a real buyer;
don’t know if we’re reading the situation accurately and maybe this person isn’t, and will never be, a buyer;
assume that we position our pitch/presentation/marketing using the ‘right’ approach;
have little indication if our skills cause a sale to close – or even who might be the most effective recipients to target;
sit and wait and hope for call backs, continually moving the dates on our pipeline forward;
don’t know who will finally show up and buy.

Sellers can’t even identify prospects who will buy from their pipeline. After asking hundreds of sellers who among their current prospects will definitely buy, no one, in my entire 35 years of sales training and consulting, ever has more than a guess. But that’s because it’s not possible to know who will be a buyer on the first call using the current sales focus of seeking people with ‘need’.

And herein lies the problem: by entering prospecting calls with goals, expectations, and listening patterns that assume we can recognize a real buyer, or when we find someone with a ‘need’ we’ve got a prospect, or by sending out content marketing cleverly introducing features and functions, we not only chase those who may never buy (the majority), but overlook an entirely different set of criteria for finding those who CAN buy: people who are willing and able to change. That’s right: the criteria for finding someone who will/can buy is wholly dependent on whether they are willing and able to change. For those of you who find this concept unusual, I’ll lead you through this.

CHANGE IS THE CRITERIA, NOT NEED

Did you buy a gym membership (or get coaching, or lose weight, or…) when you first recognized a ‘need’ or when you were (finally) ready to make a change? How long did you have the ‘need’ before you actually did something about it? When you finally took action, it had nothing to do with the gym membership or the coach; you were ready and willing to change, to take action now (yes, now), find the time, develop new habits, make it a priority over something else you were doing with that time, have the funds, etc. ‘Need’ may inspire a consideration to do something different, but does not constitute the action to do it.

When we enter a conversation believing that someone with a ‘need’ is a buyer, we ignore

how our biased questions (based on discovering ‘need’) cause responses that may seem to imply a need, or
how our biased listening assures we can confirm we found someone who SHOULD buy, very often missing the full range of meaning, overlooking those who CAN/WILL buy but aren’t quite ready yet, or
the vast difference between ‘need’ and ability/willingness to undertake the change process inherent in a purchase.

Think about it: why would anyone spend time listening to a stranger (yes, you’re a stranger) or reading content, unless they want something? Here’s the rule: if someone is in the early stages of scoping stuff out and hasn’t yet realized they might need to buy something, or haven’t yet adjusted for how making a purchase would affect their status quo, they have no reason to spend time with you, regardless need, or the efficacy of your solution. Therefore, with our solution placement outreach methods we merely attract:

people doing research for solutions to create themselves or give to their current vendors;
folks examining differences between features of your solution vs how they’re handling the problem internally;
people with the same buying patterns as your selling patterns (those willing to read an article, or speak to a stranger, or go to an intro meeting, for example);
those with a real need who will be buyers once they have all their ducks in a row.

Even if we’re connecting in response to a request for more information or a referral, we’re entering as a solution seeking a problem without considering the range of activities (the internal change management elements) necessary before someone can buy. We forget that between recognizing a problem and taking actions to resolve it (adopt something new), essential steps must occur (I wrote a book on this. Take a look: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com) to

determine that, indeed a change is necessary (or retain the status quo if change isn’t feasible);
to get agreement that the problem can’t be resolved with familiar solutions and needs an external fix;
to know how to manage the disruption that will ensue (any additions or subtractions to the status quo causes disruption);
to facilitate the buy in of everyone involved.

In other words, sales shares data prematurely, before people even know what to listen for; listens for ‘buying signals’ that don’t exist; overlooks those who WILL become buyers but don’t yet understand they need us. Our prospects are restricted to the low hanging fruit who already know they need us, ensuring we play a numbers game as everyone fights to close the same pool of ready buyers. If they were fully cognizant of what they needed AND had the internal buy-in to make a purchase AND knew how much discombobulation they’d face, they would have gone online and contacted us already. To find real buyers on the first call, we need a different listening bias and goal to recognize those who are willing to change.

THE SALES MODEL RESTRICTS DISCOVERY

I’ve been told the ‘million dollar question’ is knowing who is a buyer on the first call. And yet, it’s simple. Here are two examples of me making a cold call to a Sales Director. I entered both conversations with the same Facilitative Question (FQ – a new form of question I developed that facilitates discovery without biasing choice or attempting to gather data): How are you currently adding new sales skills to the ones your folks now use for those times you seek to augment specific outcomes? Just from the responses to my opening question, it’s easy to recognize which person is a buyer.

Responder A: Every year I read 6 sales books. I then buy copies of my favorite one for each sales person, and ask them to meet once a month to discuss how to incorporate the ideas into their selling.

Responder B: Good question. I’ve certainly tried, but I haven’t been successful. I keep training my folks with the newest sales methods, and it hasn’t seemed to make a difference. Not sure if I’m using the right training methods, or I just need to fire all of my sales folks and start all over. Or maybe something we’re doing internally that’s causing the results. I sure wish I knew the answer.

Which one is the prospect? B, of course. Do they both have a need? Probably. But it’s clear who’d be willing to change. Notice I entered the conversation to help the prospect start thinking about change, not to try to find a match between my solution and a need, or find someone (um, the ‘decision maker?’) who would listen to a pitch (why do we assume that our glorious pitch and content will rule the day, after thousands of people ignore us?). Different from conventional sales approaches that enter to discover a ‘need’ or attempt to ‘gather information’, my opening FQ used vocabulary that restricted the conversation to where change would occur, while providing me information on their willingness to change.

And it’s quite important to understand that by entering the conversation with an entirely different focus, the rest of the conversation and the resultant human connection, the ability to find a real buyer and make a sale, is quite different from a seller entering to sell their solution.

The problem has never been our solution or their need. The part we’ve left out of sales is change. Every purchase, every add-on involves shifting the status quo in some way – assuredly causing some form of disruption; unless a prospect knows how change with minimal disruption they can’t buy anything regardless of their need or my solution. I ask you: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? They are two distinctly different activities. And we’re only focused on the selling – all the while ignoring real buying opportunities that require some change facilitation rather than solution placement bias.

RECOGNIZING AND FACILITATING CHANGE BEFORE SELLING

Do you know what an exchange sounds like with a real buyer? Training Buying Facilitation® to small business bankers at Wachovia, we opened with a Facilitative Question that produced great results:“How are you currently adding new banking resources for those times you need additional support?” This question

focused on having clients consider their status quo.
assumed they had some sort of banking relationship (which all small businesses have).
offered add on support (so much less disruption to ‘add’ rather than ‘change’).
got them to begin thinking if change were a viable activity.

Of course the discussion involved further facilitation, but this FQ opened the dialogue and, importantly, positioned the seller as a facilitator enabling Excellence rather than a sales person pushing solutions. Using this process, the results were profound: the control group, asking for appointments to present their new small business banking services, got 10 appointments out of 100, closing 2 in 11 months. Using Buying Facilitation® and starting with the above Facilitative Question (and no pitch!), my group got 39 appointments; they closed half in the first 2 months, then half of the remainder in the next month. So in 3 months, they closed approximately 30 prospects. Same list, same product. But by starting from a change consideration, we found – and then efficiently facilitated – real buyers. The other group merely uncovered those who recognized a willingness to seek a new banker but still weren’t in a position to change (i.e. notice the difference in closing times). The most interesting thing was how little time it took to close those willing to change once the seller facilitated the prospect through their change and buy-in determinants.

A buying decision is a change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. Making a purchase or choosing a vendor is the last thing – the last thing – a prospect will do. If we eschew a ‘selling’ focus as an entry, and instead focus on change, we can find those willing and able to consider change and facilitate them through their steps of change – enlist buy-in; design a way to maintain what’s working while adding new solutions to ensure continuity; manage people issues and internal politics – changing with minimal disruption. But it demands an entirely different skill set and entry point.

My Buying Facilitation® model has coded every step buyers must go through to discover how, when, and if, to make a change and leads them through the non-buying, systems-focused steps necessary without the bias of sales; different from sales, and used as the first step before a solution is actually introduced (although the questions are posed around the area my solution can resolve) it operates as a change facilitation approach that consists of different skills from sales – Facilitative Questions, Listening for Systems, and Presumptive Summaries to facilitate discovery and manage change.

Buying Facilitation® can be employed in a fraction of the time it takes to pitch to a stranger; it reduces the failed follow up attempts to ensure we’re only following up with those who WILL buy, and teach them how they CAN buy. And then, employ our brilliant sales approach to the right buyers. It’s win win. What would you need to know about the learning process to understand how Buying Facilitation® would enable you to close more, waste less time, and serve more clients efficiently? Call me. I’ll teach you how to do it.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is the inventor of Buying Facilitation®, the generic Change Facilitation model that offers influencer the tools to enable Others to make congruent changes to find their own excellence, without fallout. She has trained this in sales, coaching, leadership, and management to Fortune 500 companies globally since 1985. Sharon Drew is the author of 9 books, including NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and Amazon bestseller’s Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? which explores the gap in understanding between what’s said and what’s heard. Sharon Drew lives on a houseboat in Portland OR.

Sharon Drew Morgen May 13th, 2019

Posted In: News, Sales

I wasn’t diagnosed with Nonverbal Learning Disorder – NLD, similar to Asperger’s – until I was 61. For most of my life it’s felt like I live in a quarantined room with glass walls, watching people live seemingly normal lives on the other side, but unable to touch them. But my world, although far less social, is rich; every day I awake filled with curiosity and visions of possibility, with ideas to write about and share so others can use; every day my heart aches with the need to use my abilities to make a difference and help everyone have the tools to be all they can be.

Since I was a kid I’ve had to navigate social situations that render me confused and obnoxious: expected social norms are often incomprehensible to me (I’ll never understand why strangers ask “How are you?” when it’s such a personal question.). My listening skills, apparently, aren’t conventional either: I hear, and respond to, the meaning behind words rather than those spoken. [Note: Like many Aspies, I hear whole circles/systems when spoken to, and often respond to the metamessage intended instead of the words spoken. It gets to the heart of any communication quickly. Clients love it, friends tolerate it, strangers mock it or call me ‘rude’.]. The world’s just different for me.

As a kid my grades suffered until someone figured out I should be given essays instead of multiple choice tests (Then I got A’s). I couldn’t make friends (no sleepovers, or parties, either in high school or college!) even though I was a cheerleader, the school pianist, and editor of the school paper. And everyone, including my confounded parents, tried to make me ‘normal’ when I did something ‘odd’ or ‘bad’. [In those days there was no diagnosis]. Why couldn’t they see/hear/feel me and appreciate my ideas and heart? Why didn’t anyone just accept and encourage me? I knew I was smart and kind. It confused me that others couldn’t see me because I was different.

I prayed to be normal, to understand what responding ‘appropriately’ meant. I longed to join the world, to fit in when I wanted to, but didn’t want to lose my authenticity or ideas. I was determined to figure out how Others made choices, how I made mine, and note the differences. I remember telling myself that since I was in trouble all the time anyway I might as well be in trouble for doing what I thought was right, so long as I knew the difference. This formed the foundation of my life’s work: figuring out how people could make new, congruent choices. In retrospect, I cannot imagine what made me think I could accomplish this. But I did. I just did it my way.

HOW DO WE CHOOSE WHAT WE CHOOSE?

Starting at age 11 I stole away to a large, flat rock in a nearby reservoir to think. From 1957 – 1963 I filled notebooks with ideas, drawings and doodles, and fantasized possibilities: how do people choose? What exactly, is choice, and how do people know when to choose to do something different? Do one thing over another? These questions have filled my entire life. [No Google, no computers, no neuroscience or behavioral science or Daniel Kahneman. Just me, a rock, some paper and pen, and intense curiosity.] It became my ‘topic’: What caused people to think, and act, differently from each other, sometimes with the same set of ‘givens’? Could people be taught when, if, or how to make different choices? Could I change? Could anyone?

I also wrote down conversations – with my parents, and those I overheard – noting similarities and differences in words, responses, and intent; I noted when Others’ behaviors and dialogues were confusing, and when I got in trouble for not making the right choices. I wrote down my own internal dialogue when I was apparently out of step, and noted the social situation when I noticed others said something different than they meant.

It was obvious that people reacted differently to the same stimulus. Seemed everyone’s subjective experience (I call it a system of unique rules, norms, beliefs, experience, history etc.) creates the unconscious biases that cause their habitual choices.

1. Everyone’s choices come from their unique, historic, subjective internal realities (their ‘system’) and are largely unconscious.

I collected data in my jobs: From 1975 – 1979 I ran pre-discharge groups and family therapy in an in-patient state psychiatric center giving me an invaluable opportunity to learn about group communication, hidden agendas and veiled meanings, and the vulnerability of maintaining the status quo. 1979-1983 I was a stockbroker on Wall Street. From 1983-1989 I founded a tech company in London, Hamburg, and Stuttgart and had the opportunity to negotiate and have clients/staff from different countries and cultures. I’ve run Buying Facilitation® training programs in 5 of the 7 continents. I founded a Not-For-Profit around Europe that helped kids with my son’s disease get the resources to lead functional lives. Then, and to this day, I have mapped communication, choice, and belief-based decision making.

HOW WE MAINTAIN OUR STATUS QUO

One of my persistent bewilderments was why people behaved in destructive ways even when they had relevant data suggesting they try something else. As I got better at mapping the elements behind my own decision making process and matching it to what I noticed in Others, I realized the complexity of the problem: there’s a broader set of considerations involved than just ‘fixing’ it, or weighting choices. Seems there are iterative, sequential steps that must occur internally before any system is ready for change (Read Dirty Little Secrets for a complete discussion.) including:

2. A. assembling the full, unique data set that comprises the status quo. Includes rules, values, goals, relationships/people, history, events, etc.;
B. a recognition of anything and everything missing in the status quo that might lead to a problem or a lack [omitting anything causes incomplete, possibly inaccurate data; attempting to push anything in prematurely causes resistance to avoid system destabilization.].

Given the subjectivity and sophistication involved in this process, any change we each to through obviously must be initiated, defined, and accepted from within our indvidual systems; change being pushed from outside gets resisted because it potentially offends the system. Our human systems are sacrosanct.

3. Change must come from within the elements of the system that created the problem to ensure the status quo is maintained.
4. Any potential change must be agreed upon (i.e. buy-in) by the system of rules, experiences, history, people, values (etc.), that hold the initiating problem in place.

Here is the question that has ruled my thinking for decades: How could I, or anyone (given we’re each operating from unconscious subjective biases), facilitate change in Others if their change factors are unconscious and fight to maintain the status quo?

PUSHING CHANGE VS FACILITATING CHANGE

In the mid-1980s I discovered NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP – the study of the structure of subjective experience) and studied for three years (Practitioner, Master Practitioner, and a unique Beyond/Integration year) because I found their unwrapping of human systems cogent and important. While it’s not scientifically accepted, NLP is quite important as a way to unpack how/why we do what we do and is the most important communication tool of the twentieth century. I loved the depth of the discovery process through their codified systems of human criteria. Unfortunately, like other influencer models (sales, leadership, coaching, healthcare etc.) the NLP practitioner is trained to use this knowledge to push change from outside, when it’s far more consistent, relevant, accurate and integrous to enable Others to traverse, repair, and integrate the route of their own change; NLP practitioners, like doctors and sales folks, attempt to cause change (obviously using their own personal biases), rather than trusting that people must elicit their own change to remain congruent.

5. Until the system determines how to garner buy-in and consensus in a way that’s congruent with its own rules, and make room for something new in a way the system won’t face disorder, change will be resisted rather than threaten the status quo.

In the late 1980s I discovered the books of Roger Schank who said questions could uncover unconscious criteria. Really? Conventional questions were biased, restricting responses to the bias of the Asker. Since change is an inside job, how could questions enable choice?

I played with this problem for a year and eventually developed a new form of question (Facilitative Question) that uses specific words, in a specific order, in sequenced steps, as an unbiased directional device (much like a GPS, with no bias), giving Outsiders (influencers) the ability to efficiently and congruently help Others traverse the route to change, and make quick decisions and shifts in ways that their system deems tolerable. In other words, a form of question that can be used by doctors, sellers, coaches, leaders – anyone who seeks to enable change in others. An example: ‘How will you know if it’s time to reconsider your hairstyle?’ instead of ‘Why do you wear your hair like that?’ – leading Others directly to the route down their own unconscious change criteria, rather than manipulating the change sought by the Questioner. After all, an Outsider can never fully understand the makeup of someone else’s unique, unconscious system. Why not lead them through to their own change steps?

6. As neutral navigation devices, Facilitative Questions direct the Other’s unconscious down the sequence of change without bias, enabling consensus from the system, congruent to their own norms. In others words, influencers can help people make permanent, congruent change, so long as they eschew leading from their own biases.

Used in sales, coaching, negotiating, leadership, healthcare, decision making, and management, these questions help the Other get straight to the heart of their own decisions, enabling influencers to quickly determine how – or if – to proceed with integrity, collaboration, and authenticity. {In sales, Facilitative Questions quickly eliminate those who would never buy, discover and teach those with a need (initially recoznized or not) AND an ability to buy, and close sales in half the time. Buyers need to take these steps (Pre-Sales) prior to any buying decision anyway, and usually make them behind-the-scenes while sellers wait.}

In the 80s and 90s, I found the books of Benjamin Libet and Maurice Merleau-Ponty who confirmed my early theories that behavior comes from subjective experience. I’ve met with, and read close to a thousand books and papers from, communication experts, behavioral scientists, neuroscientists. I even interviewed for a PhD in Behavioral Sciences, but was told my work was 20 years ahead of the current research at the time so I couldn’t use my own work as my PhD thesis. I did begin an experiment at Columbia with a behavioral scientist on the criteria people used to make decisions with (behavioral vs belief), but our funding got cut as we were set to begin. And in all of my sales/Buying Facilitation® training programs, we have a pilot group compared with a control group.

THE BIRTH OF BUYING FACILITATION®: WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Putting all of my learning and ideas together, it presents a very different picture than the one we currently use to influence, lead, or serve others. Here’s a recap.

1. Everyone makes decisions based on their own unique, unconscious subjective biases. External data will be resisted, accepted, misunderstood accordingly, regardless of the need or efficacy of the information.
2. Everyone, and every team, exists within a system of idiosyncratic rules that create and maintain the status quo, and will resist change (buying anything, shifting behaviors) until the system has bought-in to shifting congruently.
3. Conventional questions are biased by the Questioner, and lead to restricted data collection and responses. Facilitative Questions lead the system through it’s own path to assembly, and change management so it can make its own best decisions and discover its own type of Excellence.
4. People can only hear/listen according to the parameters of their internal biases, and will misunderstand, mishear, forget, filter any data that is not aligned. I wrote a book on this: What? Did you really say what I think I heard?
5. Change can only happen from the inside, regardless of the external ‘reality’ or need.
6. Information cannot teach anyone how to make a new decision; all change/choice comes from shifts within the existent, systemic beliefs. Information is only useful once all elements of change are in place; otherwise it gets misheard, misinterpreted, or ignored.
7. Until a system knows how, if, when, where to change congruently, no change will occur regardless of any external reality.
8. It’s possible to facilitate Others through congruent change, be part of their decision making process, potentially expand their choices, and work with those who are ready, willing, and able. This enables influencers to truly serve rather than depend on ‘intuition’ or their own biases.

I know we spend billions creating pitches, rational arguments, data gathering, questionnaires, training, Behavior Modification, etc. But this only captures the low hanging fruit – those who have gotten to the place where new ideas, solutions, training’s fit. People who

think differently,
have rules, expectations or beliefs that run counter to the offered information (but can be recalculated), or
have not yet reached the realization that they need what you’ve got on offer (but do need it)

will either mishear, misunderstand, or resist when presented with any outside push or data. That means we’re offering our solutions before the system is set up for change, finding only the low hanging fruit who have already determined their route to change. Conventional models that push/offer/pull information – rational or otherwise – cannot do better than be there when the fruit’s ready to fall. But by adding some skills that first facilitates change readiness, it’s possible to become part of the decision process and a place on the Buying Decison Team.

My core thinking remains outside of conventional thinking because it’s not academic (although it’s more accepted these days). But after 60 years of study and mistakes, 35 years of training clients and running control groups, I’ve accomplished my childhood goal. My generic facilitation model (Buying Facilitation®) has been taught globally since 1985; it does just what I always wanted to do: offer scalable skills to anyone seeking to truly serve others by facilitating their own brand of excellence. In other words, I can teach influencers to help Others know how, when, if to make new choices for themselves. It’s an unconventional model, and certainly not academic. But it’s been proven with over 100,000 people globally.

These days, I continue to learn, read, study, and theorize. Should anyone in healthcare, sales, leadership, OD, or coaching be interested in learning more, or collaborating, or or or, I’m here.

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Sharon Drew Morgen has been coding and teaching change and choice in sales, coaching, healthcare, and leadership for over 30 years. She is the developer of Buying Facilitation®, a generic decision facilitation model used in sales, and is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. Sharon Drew’s book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? has been called a ‘game changer’ in the communication field, and is the first book that explains, and solves, the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. Her assessments and learning tools that accompany the book have been used by individuals and teams to learn to enter conversations able to hear without filters.

Sharon Drew is the author of one of the top 10 global sales blogs with 1700+ articles on facilitating buying decisions through enabling buyers to manage their status quo effectively. To learn Buying Facilitation® contact sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512-771-1117 and visit www.newsalesparadigm.com

Sharon Drew Morgen April 29th, 2019

Posted In: Change Management, Listening, News

When researching my book on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I was surprised to learn how little of what we hear someone say is unbiased, or even accurate. Seems we hear what we want to hear, and not necessarily what’s been meant; too often we don’t know the difference. There are several elements that conspire against accuracy. And sadly, it’s largely out of our control.

THE PROBLEM WITH LANGUAGE

Let me begin with my definitions of ‘language’ and ‘communication’:

In dialogue, language is a translation process between a Speaker’s thoughts – translated and verbalized into a delivery system of ideas, words, voice (tone, tempo, pitch), and the unspoken goal/bias of the outcome sought – and the Listener’s filtering system.

A completed communication is a circle – Speaker -> Listener -> Speaker: the Speaker translates an internal thought/idea through language to their Communication Partner (CP) who listens through their own unique and subjective filters, and responds to what they have interpreted. Until or unless the Speaker’s message has been received accurately, the communication is not complete.

Language itself is one of the problems we face when attempting to accurately understand what a Speaker means:

We speak in one unbroken stream of words (Spaces appear only between written words.) that can be differentiated only by those familiar with the language and vocabulary (Have you ever asked a question from a language book in a foreign country and get a response in a continuous stream of sounds that can’t be isolated to allow you to look up words to translate?) Since everyone speaks in word streams, our ears have become subjectively habituated to listen for patterns within them; our brains continue down those pathways even if the Speaker’s intent isn’t matched.
Words have uniquely nuanced meanings for each of us. The words a Speaker chooses that impart understanding may not be the best word choices for our Listener whose subjective filtering process may not match, or indeed instigate the wrong interpretation.
Our brains only remember spoken words for approximately 3 seconds. By the time our brains separate the individual words to glean meaning, we’re lagging ‘behind’ the speaker, so we rely on our unconscious habits and thinking patterns to bridge, or fill in, gaps in understanding. Obviously, it’s easiest to accurately understand people we’re similar to.

Arguably the largest detractor of accuracy for understanding our CPs intended message are the cultural, experiential, belief, education, and intimacy gaps that create subjective and unconscious filters in us all. These filters – biases, assumptions, triggers, habituated neural pathways, and memory channels – unconsciously and automatically sift out or transform what our CP says that’s uncomfortable or different from our beliefs, our lifestyles, etc., or aren’t in line within the goal of what we’re actively seeking in the exchange.

While we each assume that what we ‘hear’ is an accurate representation of what’s been said, often it’s not. With our subjective listening filters uniquely interpreting what others say, we can’t help but

bias their intended message subjectively,
make inaccurate assumptions, miss important ideas, requests, and emotional cues,
follow established memory channels and neural pathways that lead us to wrongly interpret what was meant,
mishear directions, rules, warnings, nuance, names etc.,
take away mistaken comprehension,

and on and on. As sellers we ‘hear’ that people are buyers; as coaches we ‘hear’ people complain of stuff we know how to fix; as leaders we ‘hear’ our teams convey they’re on-board (or not) with our ideas; as change agents we ‘hear’ rejection rather than alternate approaches or shared concerns; as parents we ‘hear’ our teenagers making excuses.

OUR BRAINS TRICK US

Simplistically, here’s our unconscious listening process:

We first listen through a hierarchy of historic and habitual filters, unconsciously seeking a match with our biases, beliefs, and values– and delete or alter what seems incompatible.
With what’s left from the initial round of filtering, our brains seek a match with something familiar by sorting for a similar memory, which could focus on just a term or one of the ideas mentioned, or or or, and throws away what doesn’t match without telling us what’s been omitted or misconstrued! We might accurately hear the words spoken, but unconsciously assign a vastly different interpretation from the intended meaning.

And because we’re only ‘told’ what our brains ‘tell’ us has been said, we end up ‘certain’ that what we think we hear is actually what’s meant. So if someone says ABC we might actually hear ABL, without knowing what our brains added, subtracted, or muddled. I once lost a business partner because he ‘heard’ me say X when three of us sitting there, including his wife, confirmed I said Y. “I was right here! Why are you all lying to me! I heard it with my own ears!” And he walked out in a self-generated rage. His brain actually told him I said something I never said and he never questioned it, even though three people told him he misheard.

I know this is disconcerting but it’s important to understand: Listeners always assume what they (think they) hear is what has been said. And where this diverges from the Speaker’s intended meaning, we end up responding to an inaccurate understanding, blaming our CP for miscommunicating, and never consider that just maybe we unwittingly got it wrong.

It all happens automatically and unconsciously, and we end up involuntarily misunderstanding without realizing, until too late, that there is a problem. Indeed we have no conscious ability to tell our brains what to search for when we’re listening, causing us to potentially hear a fraction of a fraction of what’s meant; we then compound the problem by responding according to what we THINK has been said. So we might get self-righteously angry, or perceive we’re forgiven; we hear people as racists or healers or sarcastic or buyers; we feel slighted or complimented or ignored; we think ideas are stupid and opinions absurd. And in each instance, we miss the possibility of a partnership, or a new concept, or a conversation or relationship that might have been.

In summary: the structure of language itself causes confusion when listening to Others; our subjective filters – biases (of which there are hundreds), assumptions, and triggers – are unconscious impediments to what we think we hear; our neural pathways, habitual associations, and memory channels automatically, and subjectively, get triggered by a word or phrase and go down their own well-travelled path to seek a match, potentially eschewing more relevant or accurate routes to understanding; our brains don’t tell us what it’s omitted or transformed, leaving us potentially misunderstanding – without question – what our CP meant to impart.

And it’s all unconscious. According to Sarah Williams Goldhagen in Welcome to Your World, our unconscious (or ‘nonconscious’ as she calls it) is approximately 90% of our attention, and only 10% “…patterned and schematized in a way we can interact with others.”(pg 59) So misunderstanding is virtually built into our communication.

LISTENING FOR METAMESSAGES INSTEAD OF WORDS

Unfortunately we have no automatic capability to hear a Speaker’s intended message accurately, regardless of the Speaker’s word choices or the Listener’s commitment to listening ‘carefully’, regardless of the costly wordsmithing done in many industries to lure Listener buy-in. But as Listeners can take an active role in consciously managing our listening filters to encourage greater understanding. For this we must circumvent our biased listening; we must learn the skill of avoiding listening for meaning solely from the words.

From birth, we’re taught to carefully listen for words (and Active Listening has a part to play in this predisposition), assuming, falsely, we’ll translate them accurately. We can, however, circumvent our normal filtering process by shifting our attention from listening to words to listening for meaning; listening for what’s meant, rather than for what’s said; listening less to the words and more for the Speaker’s underlying intent.

Let’s walk this back. Remember that Speakers speak to impart an underlying thought (I call this the Metamessage) and then unconsciously select the most precise words – for that situation, for that Listener – to do so. But these word choices might not be the best ones to garner accurate understanding in that particular Listener. Certainly, a Speaker has no idea how a Listener’s filters will interpret the sent message. This becomes more obvious when speaking to a group and some members understand, others misunderstand. To circumvent misunderstanding, to have a greater chance of hearing what’s meant and eliminating the factors causing misunderstanding, we must take filters out of the listening process.

There’s a higher probability of hearing others accurately if Listeners bypass the normal filtering process and instead focus on the Speaker’s intended meaning. I learned the basic concept while studying NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming – the study of the structure of subjective experience) and expanded it in my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? When listening we can actually go beyond the brain and experience a broad view (not intimate details) of what’s being meant.

To avoid our listening filters, to get the broader meaning behind the idea intended, we must go ‘up to the ceiling’ and listen as a Witness/Observer. A very simple example would be if someone said ‘I wish you would be on time more often’, the Metamessage might be ‘I hate that you’re late again. And I’m getting tired of waiting for you all the time!’ We do this naturally when speaking with a small child, listening with for what they mean to tell us, rather than focus on their possibly unskilled wordsmithing. Or when we overhear a conversation in a Starbucks. In both instances we’re Observers.

We don’t know how to consciously choose; the problem is we don’t know how to consciously choose to do so. To choose the Witness/Observer viewpoint, think of a time when you’re aware you were listening without any personal agenda and break down how you did that – how you knew when it was time to disengage from the words, what you noticed that was different, how it shifted your communication exchange. If it’s something you want to learn, I’ve written an entire chapter on this (Chapter 6) in What?.

LISTENING FOR MEANING VS WORDS

Here are two cold call interactions that exemplify the difference between listening for words vs for Metamessages. The first is a dialogue of a coaching client in which I was teaching him how to sell with integrity. He started out fine, but then dissolved into his old push technique when he interpreted the prospect’s words according to his own filters:

BROKER: Hi My name is Jeff Rosen. I sell insurance and this is a cold call. Is this a good time to speak?

CLIENT: Hi Jeff. Thanks for calling but I’m just walking out the door.

BROKER: “IonlyneedtwosecondsIwouldliketocomeandseeyounextweek.”

The prospect hung up.

SDM: What was that????? You started off great! And he responded kindly.

BROKER: I had to talk really fast because he said he was busy.

Listening for the spoken words through his filters, my client only heard a time constraint and didn’t ‘hear’ that the prospect stayed on the line and didn’t hang up. Listening from a Witness/Observer position he would have heard that the prospect was polite and hanging in with him, and made another choice: “I’ll call back when it’s convenient.” Or “Thanks. What’s a better time?”

In a very similar situation, I made a cold call to the Chief Training Officer at IBM; you’ll notice that both of us listened for the Metamessage instead of the words:

NANCY: [The world’s fastest] HELLO!

SDM: You sound busy. When should I call back?

NANCY: Tomorrow at 2.

And we both hung up.

This continued for 3 days with the exact same dialogue. Finally we had this exchange on day 4:

NANCY: HELLO!

SDM: You still sound busy.

NANCY: Who are you?

SDM: Sharon Drew Morgen, and this is only a cold call. I can call you back when you’re not so busy.

NANCY: What are you selling?

SDM: Training for a facilitated buying model to use with sales.

NANCY: I’ll give you 5 minutes.

SDM: Not enough.

NANCY: 10 minutes.

SDM: Not enough.

NANCY: OK. I’m yours. But I want to know how you just did what you did. How did you get me to speak with you? How do I feel so respected when you’re cold calling me? How did you get me to give you so much time? And can you teach my sales team how to do that? Can you come next month? [Note: I ended up training with them for two years. I didn’t even have to pitch.]

Both of us listened with our Witness hats on. Nancy heard my Metamessage: by immediately hanging up after getting a time, she ‘heard’ me say that I respected her time. Calling back at the requested time told her I was responsible. Telling her it was a sales cold told her I was honest and wasn’t going to manipulate her. And by me abiding to her time frame she abided to mine. Indeed, I ‘said’ none of those things in words; the meaning was the message I intended to send. My goal was to connect if possible and serve if able. To connect, I’d have to value her time, not push; to serve I’d be honest and responsible. So she ‘heard’ me, beyond the words. It was win/win.

So here’s a suggestion: For those times it’s important to understand the underlying meaning of another’s communication, and you cannot risk biases and assumptions that might significantly alter the outcome, I suggest you go up to the ‘ceiling’ and listen from Witness/Observer.

This is a great tool for those of you who are Active Listening proponents. When listening to correctly capture the words spoken, understand your brain will bias how you interpret them and you may not achieve clarity as to the intent of the message. In my experience, AL doesn’t ensure understanding and too often puts the ‘blame’ of misunderstanding on the Speaker.

Try listening from the ‘ceiling’ from Witness/Observer. It might make a difference. And if that’s not comfortable at least clear a way to understanding in each important conversation:

Before we continue, I just want to make sure I understand what you mean to say.

Here’s what I heard…. Is that accurate?

Communication is delicate, as are relationships. Take the time to ensure you and your Communication Partner are on the same page. And delight that a shared understanding inspires possibility.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker, and author of 9 books, including the New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets – why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? She is the developer of Change Facilitation, used in sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, and management – any influencing situation in which integrity, ethics, and collaboration are involved. Sharon Drew is a speaker, trainer, consultant, and coach for sales and listening. She can be reached at: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com; her award winning blog has thoughtful articles on change, systems, decision making, and communication. www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen April 1st, 2019

Posted In: News

THE PROBLEM WITH LANGUAGE

Let me begin with my definitions of ‘language’ and ‘communication’:

Language itself is one of the problems we face when attempting to accurately understand what a Speaker means:

We speak in one unbroken stream of words (Spaces appear only between written words.) that can be differentiated only by those familiar with the language and vocabulary (Have you ever asked a question from a language book in a foreign country and get a response in a continuous stream of sounds that can’t be isolated to allow you to look up words to translate?) Since everyone speaks in word streams, our ears have become subjectively habituated to listen for patterns within them; our brains continue down those pathways even if the Speaker’s intent isn’t matched.
Words have uniquely nuanced meanings for each of us. The words a Speaker chooses that impart understanding may not be the best word choices for our Listener whose subjective filtering process may not match, or indeed instigate the wrong interpretation.
Our brains only remember spoken words for approximately 3 seconds. By the time our brains separate the individual words to glean meaning, we’re lagging ‘behind’ the speaker, so we rely on our unconscious habits and thinking patterns to bridge, or fill in, gaps in understanding. Obviously, it’s easiest to accurately understand people we’re similar to.

bias their intended message subjectively,
make inaccurate assumptions, miss important ideas, requests, and emotional cues,
follow established memory channels and neural pathways that lead us to wrongly interpret what was meant,
mishear directions, rules, warnings, nuance, names etc.,
take away mistaken comprehension,

OUR BRAINS TRICK US

Simplistically, here’s our unconscious listening process:

We first listen through a hierarchy of historic and habitual filters, unconsciously seeking a match with our biases, beliefs, and values – and delete or alter what seems incompatible.
With what’s left from the initial round of filtering, our brains seek a match with something familiar by sorting for a similar memory, which could focus on just a term or one of the ideas mentioned, or or or, and throws away what doesn’t match without telling us what’s been omitted or misconstrued! We might accurately hear the words spoken, but unconsciously assign a vastly different interpretation from the intended meaning.

LISTENING FOR METAMESSAGES INSTEAD OF WORDS

There’s a higher probability of hearing others accurately if Listeners bypass the normal filtering process and instead focus on the Speaker’s intended meaning. I learned the basic concept while studying NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming – the study of the structure of subjective experience) and expanded it in my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? When listening we can actually go beyond the brain and experience a broad view (not intimate details) of what’s being meant.

LISTENING FOR MEANING VS WORDS

BROKER: Hi My name is Jeff Rosen. I sell insurance and this is a cold call. Is this a good time to speak?

CLIENT: Hi Jeff. Thanks for calling but I’m just walking out the door.

BROKER: “IonlyneedtwosecondsIwouldliketocomeandseeyounextweek.”

The prospect hung up.

SDM: What was that????? You started off great! And he responded kindly.

BROKER: I had to talk really fast because he said he was busy.

In a very similar situation, I made a cold call to the Chief Training Officer at IBM; you’ll notice that both of us listened for the Metamessage instead of the words:

NANCY: [The world’s fastest] HELLO!

SDM: You sound busy. When should I call back?

NANCY: Tomorrow at 2.

And we both hung up.

This continued for 3 days with the exact same dialogue. Finally we had this exchange on day 4:

NANCY: HELLO!

SDM: You still sound busy.

NANCY: Who are you?

SDM: Sharon Drew Morgen, and this is only a cold call. I can call you back when you’re not so busy.

NANCY: What are you selling?

SDM: Training for a facilitated buying model to use with sales.

NANCY: I’ll give you 5 minutes.

SDM: Not enough.

NANCY: 10 minutes.

SDM: Not enough.

Try listening from the ‘ceiling’ from Witness/Observer. It might make a difference. And if that’s not comfortable at least clear a way to understanding in each important conversation:

Before we continue, I just want to make sure I understand what you mean to say.
Here’s what I heard…. Is that accurate?

Communication is delicate, as are relationships. Take the time to ensure you and your Communication Partner are on the same page. And delight that a shared understanding inspires possibility.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker, and author of 9 books, including the New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets – why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? She is the developer of Change Facilitation, used in sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, and management – any influencing situation in which integrity, ethics, and collaboration are involved. Sharon Drew is a speaker, trainer, consultant, and coach for sales and listening. She can be reached at: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com; her award winning blog has thoughtful articles on change, systems, decision making, and communication. www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen August 20th, 2018

Posted In: News

80% of your prospects will buy a solution similar to yours within 2 years of your connection, but not from you; your relationship-building, price breaks, marketing campaigns, etc. are irrelevant until they have their ducks in a row and are ready to bring in a solution.

Indeed: the time it takes buyers to manage changes they’ll face from bringing in your solution is the length of the sales cycle. And you’re not helping them manage the change.

A purchase is the last thing a buyer needs. But since sales only addresses the solution placement portion – the last steps – of a buyer’s journey, sellers have no control over the comprehensive change management issues that precede a solution choice.

We sit and wait, and are unfortunately out of control, as buyers: decide between an external solution, a current provider, or an internal workaround; get buy-in from all relevant touch points; manage any potential disruption. And so we close only the low hanging fruit when they call to buy after they’ve completed their behind-the-scenes elements – and we’re totally at effect of their timing.

It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s possible to enter earlier and help them address the many issues that must be handled between an idea and a purchase.

I developed Buying Facilitation® to manage that problem for my own sales team. It’s a decision facilitation tool that helps buyers address all decision/pre-sales issues they must address internally to get consensus and manage change. My clients with 8 figure solutions brought 3 year sales cycles down to 4 months; smaller solutions from, say, 6 months to one month, and avoided presentations and RFPs.

Buying Facilitation® employs a novel listening system, a new form of question, and uses the decision points of change to facilitate the pre-sales/decision/non-solution-related systems issues buyers need to manage before they can even consider buying anything. Should the HR person share budget with L&D? Is the merger going to meld departments? Sales doesn’t get involved with these issues, yet these are the systems issues buyers must address that affect buying.

We can help buyers manage these issues and either make or expunge a buyer very quickly. Let me teach you a new skill set – if you want real control over your pipeline and don’t want to merely wait for the low hanging fruit.

_______________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the NYTimes Business Bestselling author of Selling with Integrityand 7 books how buyers buy including Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. She is the developer of Buying Facilitation® a decision facilitation model used with sales to help buyers facilitate pre-sales buying decision issues. She is a sales visionary who coined the terms Helping Buyers Buy, Buy Cycle, Buying Decision Patterns, Buy Path in 1985, and has been working with sales/marketing for 30 years to influence buying decisions.

More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com ; 512-771-1117. www.didihearyou.com; www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen June 11th, 2018

Posted In: Listening, News

How do we manage change in our organizations? Not very well, apparently. According to statistics, the success rate for many planned change implementations is low: 37 percent for Total Quality Management; 30 percent for Reengineering and Business Process Reengineering, and a whopping 97% for some software implementations. Regardless of the industry, situation, levels of people involved, or intended outcome, change seems to be sabotaged in unknown ways, causing the real possibility of failure:

Internal partners fail in attempts to promote and elicit proposed change initiatives across departments.
Leaders get blindsided by unknowns, creating more problems or becoming part of the problem when attempting to find a fix.
The system gets disrupted during the change process, unwittingly harming people, relationships, and initiatives.
Improper, or non-existent, integration between developers and users cause lack of buy-in and resistance.
The change doesn’t get adopted as conceived, with financial and personal fallout.

Is it possible that our approach is causing some of the problems? I submit that we’re omitting some of the foundational elements to congruent change, change that can be successful in:

its comfortable transitions between phases;
its ease of buy-in;
enabling all participants to embrace leadership roles and be a part of designing and developing the Rules and Beliefs that will define the emerging, new system;
reducing fallout and cost;

eliminating resistance,
encouraging creativity.

But we’ll need to do something different from what we’re currently doing.

THE SYSTEMS ASPECT OF CHANGE

Let’s begin at the beginning with my definitions of change and systems.

CHANGE: Change is a new set of choices within a system that cause the elements of the system to exhibit altered Behaviors while still maintaining homeostasis. No change can occur unless the system reorients (i.e. re-organizes, re-prioritizes etc.) itself in a way that incorporates and maintains its core accepted norms (i.e. homeostasis, Systems Congruence). In other words, all change must include a way for the elements to ultimately buy-in to, and incorporate, new functioning while maintaining the rules and Beliefs of the status quo.SYSTEM: Any connected set of elements that comprise a homeostatic entity, held together by consensual rules and Beliefs that then generate a unique set of Behaviors that exhibit its unique identity. All systems must maintain Systems Congruence or they lose their identity and become something else. Because change represents the disruption of the status quo in unknowable ways, systems defend themselves by resisting when feeling threatened. In order to facilitate congruent change, it’s necessary to get the agreement, and a recognized path forward (There are specific, sequential steps in all change processes.), of all of the bits that will be effected by the final solution to ensure it maintains its core identity, Beliefs, and rules.

As a lifelong student of systems thinking and theorizing (50+ years), I’ve recognized that change is often approached with an eye on altering activity and Behaviors without addressing the vital need for the core system to maintain homeostasis. And when we tie our understanding of the functionality of a system to its Behaviors and attempt to push Behavior change before eliciting core Belief change, we

overlook the ability to facilitate the system down its own path through to it’s own version of congruent change
are relegated to managing the fallout when the stable system reaches Cognitive Dissonance and is forced to defend itself.

Herein lie the problem: until or unless the full complement of relevent elements (that not only created the problem but holds it in place daily) agrees to congruently alter, and get buy-in from, the elements that caused the problem and will be effected by any change, it will resist change regardless of the underlying problem that needs fixing. The system is sacrosanct. And it applies whether trying to get a teenager to pick up his socks, a diabetic patient to exercise, a team to work harmoniously, or a person to figure out if/when she needs to buy something. In general, outsiders cannot effect congruent change because they cannot know the core elements that have created and maintain the status quo, nor how to re-orient them congruently around any proposed change. It’s an inside job.

With our focus on changing Behaviors, we’ve overlooked the need for a system to maintain Systems Congruence – the foundational rules, Beliefs, relationships, etc. that define the system. Outside influencers – regardless of their initiatives or rationality or persuasiveness or authority – can never understand a system they’re not a part of. Change must begin by teaching the system how to change itself. I’ve written this article to:

Explain how current approaches to change management lead to resistance,
Introduce the elements of change and need for buy-in,
Introduce a route to change that can achieve goals without resistance while maximizing leadership and creativity through buy-in and congruent change.

In my forthcoming book (tentatively titled Facilitating Change) I’ll explore this topic thoroughly. In this article I’ll introduce the important elements and lay out my thinking. And I look forward to your feedback.

ALL PROBLEMS START WITH SYSTEMS

Most influencing professions (leadership, coaching, consulting, sales etc.) begin with a goal to be met, adopt an outside-in approach that uses influence, advice, ‘rational’ scientific ‘facts’, and various types of manipulation to inspire change – while ignoring the fact that anything new, any push from outside the system, any dissimilar element not already within it, represents disruption and Cognitive Dissonance. We put the cart before the horse, attempting to change Behaviors and elicit buy in before the system is certain it won’t be compromised and knows how to make sure it survives. Until the necessary steps of change are completed and the system knows it will maintain Systems Congruence, the identified problem will continue as is: it’s already built into the system:

The full complement of elements and that created the problem and represent the status quo must be assembled and recognized [Note: this applies to making an individual decision since each of us is an individual system.];
Everyone/everything within the system must accept that it’s not possible to fix the problem with known resources;
All of the elements (people, policies, rules, relationships, etc.) that will be effected by a new solution – i.e. change – must begin by understanding, buying-in to, and accounting for, the ways they’d be changing to ensure the path they design for better funtioning leads them to homeostasis.

Until all that happens the system will resist change (or buying, or learning, or eating healthy or or) regardless of the level of need or the efficacy of the solution. And because of the unconscious, historic elements involved, for congruent change to occur, those inside the system must design their own route to acceptable change. And as outside influencers we actually cause our own resistance by pushing our agendas, when we can actually lead Others through to their own change.

By assuming a Behavior addition/subtraction is ‘rational’ or necessary, without accounting for whatever workaround the system has already adopted and built in to its daily functioning, we end up with far more failure and resistance than we should have given the efficacy of our solutions. Indeed, it’s necessary to elicit buy-in for each element that will be changed: to maintain congruence throughout the change process, systems must

Maintain Functional Stability. Systems must maintain homeostasis. Their current functioning, even when problematic, has been finely honed over time, waking up every day maintaining the Behaviors, rules, goals, etc. that created the problem to begin with. Change is not so simple as shoving in a new Behavior. Remember: a system doesn’t judge itself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It just is. And it keeps ticking over the same way day after day.
Achieve Buy-In. Whether consciously or unconsciously, a system will resist anything from outside that threatens the status quo, regardless of the efficacy of the change. For successful change to occur, the system must recognize exactly what fallout will occur when anything shifts or is added, and how each affected element must modify itself in a way that maintains the integrity of the system (i.e. Systems Congruence). I can’t say this enough: the system is sacrosanct, quite separate from whatever reasons an influencer uses to change it.
Maintain Underlying Rules and Beliefs. Great data or solutions, important needs or dangerous consequences do not influence the change if they run counter to the system’s homeostatic Beliefs and rules, overt or covert. (It’s why your Uncle Vinny still smokes with lung cancer, and why training doesn’t cause new behaviors.) Note when we attempt change a set of Behaviors without changing the underlying Beliefs that created those Behaviors to begin with, we cause resistance. And here’s a tip: when you start from inside out, from eliciting any change within a system’s Beliefs and rules (i.e. rather than ‘Eat your broccoli,’ start with ‘I’m a Healthy Person.’), new behaviors will automatically accompany them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way ‘round: when we attempt to push a new Behavior into the system – say, asking a heart patient to change her diet or exercise program – before eliciting Belief change from the entire (and largely unconscious) system, we will achieve resistance as it may be seen as a threat. It cannot be otherwise.

The issues are the same regardless of the focus, whether it’s a company resisting reorganization, a patient refusing meds, a user group resisting new software, a buyer who hasn’t figured out when, if, how to buy, or a group not taking direction from company leadership. As outsiders we too often push for our own results and actually cause the resistance that occurs.

It’s possible to use our positions as outside influencers eschew our bias and be real Servant Leaders and teach the system how to traverse each step of its own change.

CASE STUDY: SYSTEMS ALIGNMENT

Here is a case study that exhibits how to enable buy-in and congruent change management by facilitating a potential buyer through her unique systems issues en route to a purchasing decision. Note: All change situations (whether coaching, leadership, software implementations, family problems, healthcare initiatives, etc.) must go through a series of steps to change to achieve buy in. Until now, we’ve left Others to manage the route through to the steps of change on their own as we push, advocate, advise, influence, manipulate for our own agendas and then we blame them when they resist – not to mention potentially not even reach their own internal route to change.

I was with a client in Scotland when he received a call from a long-standing prospect – a Learning and Development manager at a prodigious university with whom he’d been talking for 11 months – to say, “Thanks, but no thanks” for the product purchase. After three product trials that met with acclaim and excitement, an agreed-upon price, and a close relationship developed over the course of a year, what happened? The software was a perfect solution; they were not speaking to any other providers; and price didn’t seem to be a problem.

At my client’s request, I called the L&D manager. Here is the conversation:

SDM: Hi, Linda. Sharon Drew here. Is this a good time to speak? Pete said you’d be waiting for my call around now.
LR: Yes, it’s fine. How can I help? I already told Pete that we wouldn’t be purchasing the software.
SDM: I heard. You must be so sad that you couldn’t purchase it at this time.
LR: I am! I LOVE the technology! It’s PERFECT for us. I’m so disappointed.
SDM: What stopped you from being able to purchase it?
LR: We have this new HR director with whom I share a leadership role. He is so contentious that few people are willing to deal with him. After meeting with him, I get migraines that leave me in bed. I’ve decided to limit my exposure to him, discussing only things that are emergencies. So I’ve put a stop to all communication with him just to keep me sane. He would have been my business partner on this purchase.
SDM: Sounds awful. I hear that because of the extreme personal issues you’ve experience from the relationship, you don’t have a way to get the necessary buy-in from this man to help your employees who might need additional tools to do their jobs better.
LR: Wow. You’re right. That’s exactly what I’ve done. Oh my. I’m going to have to figure that out because I’ve certainly got a responsibility to the employees.
SDM: What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to work through the personal issues and figure out how to be in some sort of a working relationship with the HR director for those times your employees need new tools?*
LR: Could you send me some of these great questions you’re asking me so I can figure it out, and maybe use them on him?

I sent her a half dozen *Facilitative Questions to both teach her how to design a route to her own sanity and a path to healthy collaborative partnership with the HR Director. Two weeks later, Linda called back to purchase the solution. What happened?

1. While the university had a need for my products solution, the poor relationship between the HR director and the L&D director created hidden, ongoing dysfunction. The information flow problem could not be resolved while the hidden problem remained in place – details not only hidden from the sales person (outsider) but used as a deterrent by Linda (who didn’t know how to resolve the problem other than to walk away because her own internal system had been violated). So yes, there was a need for the solution and indeed a willing partner, but no, there was no systemic buy-in for change.

2. I stayed completely away from attempting to resolve the problem by sharing, gathering, pitching information or my reasons why change (i.e. buying my solution) was necessary. (Not only is information not needed until the system knows what information it needs – if you haven’t figured out what type of car you want to buy there’s no need to hear a pitch about a Lamborghini – but the bias involved in sharing it and gathering it restricts success. There’s plenty of time to offer our solutions when we can pitch it relevantly, according to the way the system is set up to use it.). The only viable route was to help her figure out her own route to a fix.

3. This was not a sales problem (It’s always a ‘systems change’ problem, rarely a ‘coaching’ problem or an ‘implementation’ problem) – the Behaviors/outcomes were merely representing a broken system. I had to facilitate the change by enabling Linda to resolve her own system. This is how current change management models fail: they attempt to rule, govern, constrict, manage, influence, maintain the change, rather than enabling the system to recognize and mitigate its own unique (and largely unconscious) drivers and change itself congruently.

4. There was no way for the system to fix itself as long as the L&D director – merely one piece of the systemic puzzle that created the problem to begin with – didn’t know how to develop additional choices for herself. Her choice to do nothing was an ode to Systems Congruence.

5. In Linda’s unconscious decision to forgo a problem fix to maintain her own personal homeostasis, she unconsciously weighted her personal criteria above her criteria for doing her job. In order to buy the solution, she’d need to find a way to ensure personal Systems Congruence.

Linda was willing to separate her work-related decision from her personal issues and reevaluate her choices once she realized there was a way to maintain her internal homeostasis AND fix the problem.

Rule: Until or unless people grasp how a solution will match their underlying criteria/values, and until there is buy-in from the parts that will be effected from the change, no permanent change will happen regardless of the necessity of the change, the size of the need, the origination of the request, or the efficacy of the solution.

Current change management models assume that a ‘rational’, information/rules-based change request and early client engagement will supplant the system’s need for homeostasis.

Focusing instead on effecting Behavior change as per the route, goal, assumptions, needs of the influencer. Indeed, even when change agents attempt to include clients into the software design or change implementations, their questions and info sharing strategies are largely biased by their personal outcomes and unwittingly overlook the interdependency of core Beliefs, historic roles, unspoken rules and relationships, and unconscious drivers within the user’s unconscious system.

Rule: Whether it’s sales, leadership, healthcare, coaching or change management, until or unless the folks within another’s system are willing to adapt to, and adopt, the requested change using their own rules and Beliefs, they will either take no action or resist to maintain the homeostasis of the system. The system is sacrosanct. And information push, rational argument, leadership directives, or any outside-in model threatens the system.

HOW BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS, AND BUY-IN EFFECT SYSTEMIC CHANGE

Fortunately, it’s possible to highlight each pivotal element of change and get buy-in before attempting a change initiative. It requires an understanding of what, exactly, is a Behavior, and why starting by attempting to change the Behaviors/output of the system can only cause resistance.

Behaviors are merely Beliefs in action – the physical transaction that exemplifies the underlying rules and values of the system. In other words, they’re the means a system uses to operate and perform its purpose – the end point, and certainly an ineffective place to begin change.

Think of it this way. If you want your forward-moving robot to go backwards you might tell it why moving backward is beneficial, order it to move backward, offer scientific proof why moving backward is best, or push it. But until the internal programming is changed from the core, it cannot change regardless of how you position your request or push the robot backwards. Indeed, you might even break the robot in your attempts to get it to behave the way you want it to behave.

Since it’s not possible for an outsider to lead from inside, we must teach the system how to lead itself, much like a GPS system leads a driver to a destination without actually being in the car or noticing the landscape. Like a GPS system, we begin by leading the system through its own idiosyncratic route to design its own change (i.e. like I helped Linda figure out her core issues (i.e. not our products) and how to communicate with the HR director) to ensure Systems Congruence, buy-in and leadership from within. Here are my rules to facilitating congruent change and buy-in:

1. Enter with no bias. Help the system define the elements that created the status quo and must buy in to the change. These include anything – jobs, people, initiatives, relationships, departments – that the new solution will touch. Rule: Entering the decision-navigation portion of the change experience with bias or a personal outcome will impede the process and create resistance. Change agents must listen for systems without a biased ear (see my new book on this topic – What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) and eschew attempting to introduce information until the system is set up to change, knows what it needs to know (usually quite different from what we think it needs) and has achieved buy-in.

2. Help the system recognize all of the parts – the people, rules, relationships, presuppositions, workarounds – that created and maintain the status quo. Rule: Until or unless the system recognizes all of the factors, knows how they have contributed to the problems in the status quo, and ensures that they buy in to the change, it will not be able to give agreement.

3. Help the system figure out how to reorganize around the new change so it will not face disruption and will have all of the pieces in place to accommodate the change. Rule: The change cycle is the time it takes for the system to figure out its own trajectory so there will be minimal disruption during the change process.

BUY-IN: A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Joseph, a coaching client of mine, was a CMO in a small company (around 150 employees) had a problem: He wanted to implement a new customer-service initiative but had just joined the company and was fearful of making waves. He initially wanted to design the project, issue edicts, and fire those who didn’t comply with the initiative. After casually speaking with a few people about it, he got huge resistance.

He called me in when he realized he had to choose between enforcing the Behaviors and outcomes he had in mind, or creating the structure and teaching the employees how to become creative leaders who would design their own congruent process. I helped him build a creative structure for congruent change, which meant giving up some of the details of his plan while maintaining the congruence of what the outcome looked like. Joseph put together a list of his baseline criteria and then left open the financials, job descriptions, activities, and other decisions:

1. Maintain the company’s integrity, professionalism, and level of service;

2. Design a mix between technology and human interaction;

3. Provide customers with better access to more data, have ease of use for any information they needed, and meet their needs more proactively;

4. Create award-winning service that would differentiate the company from all competitors and keep customers over time.

He called a meeting with the entire company – even groups that the change process wouldn’t necessarily touch – and told them that he was thinking about expanding the customer service operations. He asked everyone to take a few hours to discuss, think about, and brainstorm what it could look like if they had an unlimited budget (which they didn’t have, but it would eliminate the money piece from their brainstorming), and said he’d meet with them the next week to get their ideas.

He told them that this process was highly important, and he wanted it to be part of people’s daily discussions over the next week. He asked that each group have a spokesperson and historian to keep track of all ideas.

The next week, Joseph met with employees again and asked for their input. He captured the ideas by audio and put them all up on an interactive website for the new ideas and told people to add their thoughts. He then sent them back to consider the ideas offered and generate even more.

At the next meeting, he asked workers to take all of the ideas now floating around and use them to brainstorm what the new initiative would look like, who might do what, what would have to change, and what the change would look like for those involved. He asked them to consider:

1. What jobs would change? What jobs would be added/subtracted – and what would happen with the people whose jobs might be affected?

2. What needed to stay the same internally, no matter what? And how could this be included in the new initiative?

3. What might be the possible fall-out from the staff and from customers?

4. What could get in the way of a successful change initiative?

Eventually, employees got into teams and developed solid implementation plans. Those folks who had to change jobs or had their work significantly restructured in a way that might cause resistance joined a management team or focus group and became part of the solution. And throughout the process, I listened carefully to hear points of discontinuity so we could stop and go through their internal examination of their steps to change.

Did Joseph get everything he wanted? Well, yes and no. The new organization ended up far exceeding anything he had conceived. It had more creativity and leadership. It also cost more than he realized (time and money) to put everything in place. But it elicited buy-in from everyone: there was no resistance because everyone had bought in to the idea and made it their own. And over a short amount of time, the change paid for itself.

This is only one method of facilitating change and avoiding resistance. I’ve developed a Change Facilitation model, used often in sales as Buying Facilitation®, that uses a unique skill set to enable core change. I’ve trained this to Senior Partners at recognized consulting firms, farmers in Iowa, tech people in Hong Kong, coaches in Kansas. It’s a generic model that influencers can use to elicit real change. I’m happy to discuss it with you (Sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com).

Conclusion

Before introducing any change initiative, give up the need to push the change, listen without bias, and enable Others to traverse their route to discovery:

what elements created and maintain the status quo,
who needs to be included (often a larger group than anticipated),
recognize what would get in the way of success and what needs to happen to mitigate that interference,
figure out how to manage the workarounds in place that attempt to mitigate the problem,
notice levels of buy-in and help those who resist shift their personal criteria to become part of the group,
get agreement, steps, criteria, and Behaviors for an intact, non-resistant, functioning system that welcomes the new initiative. Then introduce the change.

Until now, we’ve assumed that resistance is a normal part of the change process. But we’ve effectively been pushing our own biased needs for change into a closed, hidden system. We’ve ignored the rule of systems and forgotten that the change we are suggesting will encounter a status quo that is trying to maintain homeostasis. But as we’ve explored above, it is possible to get buy-in without resistance. We don’t have to throw out the many wonderful change models out there. But we first need to get buy-in, and then the change will be welcomed rather than spurned or sabotaged.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker, systems theorizer, and developer of a change facilitation model used in sales as Buying Facilitation®. She is an award-winning blogger (www.sharondrewmorgen.com), and the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets
and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew has trained Buying Facilitation® to coaches, leaders, healthcare providers, in many global corporations such as KPMG, Wachovia, Bose, Kaiser, Morgan Stanley, IBM. She is currently working on a new book tentatively titled: Facilitating Change: the route to congruent decision making, buy-in, and compliance.
www.sharondrewmorgen.com; sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen May 14th, 2018

Posted In: Change Management, Listening, News

I recently accepted a cold call from an insurance guy because I was thinking of switching providers. Instead of facilitating my buying decision, the bias in his questions terminated our connection:

TODD: Hello Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd with XYZ. Are you interested in new car insurance?
SDM: I am.
TODD: Is your main concern lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: You don’t care about saving money?
SDM: Of course I do.
TODD: So your main concern IS lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: So what is it?
SDM: I’m interested in a personal connection, in knowing that if I have an accident I will be handled by someone who will take care of me.
TODD: I can promise you I’ll take care of you. My clients love me. Do you want to discuss how much you’ll save?

And, we were done.

Good sellers and coaches pose better questions than Todd’s, of course. But the conversation exemplifies how a Questioner’s biased questions can significantly influence outcomes.

THE BIAS INHERENT IN QUESTIONS

Questions restrict answers to the assumptions and biases of the Questioner; Responders respond within the limits set by the question. Asking someone “What did you have for breakfast?” won’t elicit the answer “I bought a lamp.” Even questions that attempt to open a dialogue, like “What can you tell me about the problem?” or gather data, like “Who’s in charge of decision making?” merely elicit top-of-mind responses that my not effectively represent – and indeed might cloud – the issue. Biased question; biased answer.

Sometimes questions are so biased and restricted that the real answer might get overlooked. ‘Do you prefer the red ball or the blue ball?’ excludes not only the green ball, but a preference for a bat, or a discussion about the Responder’s color blindness. But a question such as: ‘What sort of a game implement could be easily carried and engage all employees?” might elicit a response of a ball or marbles or Monopoly and include more team members.

Most questions pull or push the data sought by the Questioner, making it difficult to know if

the communication partners make the same assumptions;
the wording of the question is ideal;
a better answer exists outside the limits of the question;
the question encompasses the full set of possible responses.

What if the best answer is outside of the framework of the question? Or the question isn’t translated accurately by the Responder? Or there is an historic bias between the Questioner and Responder that makes communication difficult?

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS

Questions can be used to facilitate choice, to lead Responders to new options within their own (often unconscious) value system, rather than as set ups to the Questioner’s self-serving objectives. Using a Facilitative Question, the above dialogue would sound like this:

TODD: Hi Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd, an insurance agent with XYZ Corp. I’m selling car insurance. Is this a good time to speak?
SDM: Sure.
TODD: I’m wondering: If you are considering changing your insurance provider, what would you need to know about another provider to be certain you’d end up getting the coverage and service you deserve?

The question – carefully worded to match a Responder’s criteria for change – shifts the bias from Todd’s self-serving objectives to enabling me in a true discovery process; from his selling patterns to my buying patterns. How different our interaction would have been if his goal was to facilitate my buying decision path rather than using his misguided persuasion tactics to sell.

I developed Facilitative Questions decades ago to enable any Questioner to facilitate someone’s route to congruent change. With no manipulation or bias, they require a different form of listening, wording, and objectives, thereby avoiding resistance and encouraging trust between sellers, coaches, consultants and their clients.

Take a look at your own questioning strategy to see if they might work for you:

*How are your questions perceived by your Responders? How do you know? What’s your risk?
*How do your questions address a unique Responder’s decision criteria?
*How do your questions bias, restrict, enhance, or ignore possibilities?
*What criteria to you use to choose the words to formulate questions?
*To ensure any new skills would work effectively with your successful skills, what would you need to know or consider before adopting additional question formulation skills?

Remember: your innate curiosity or intuition may not be sufficient to facilitate another’s unconscious route to change – or buy – congruently. You can always gather data once the route to change is established and you’re both on the same page. Change the goals of your questions from discovering situations you can provide answers for, to facilitating real core change. Before buyers or clients will work with you, they have to do this for themselves anyway. You might as well do it with them and create a trusting relationship.

____________

See my new Entrepreneur Programs: Getting Funded; Creating a Selling Machine; Marketing to Buying Decisions

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is a Change Facilitator, specializing in buy-in and change management. She is well known for her original thinking in sales (Buying Facilitation®) and listening (www.didihearyou.com). She currently designs scripts, programs, and materials, and coaches teams, for several industries to enable true buy-in and collaboration. Sharon Drew is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers 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 has worked with dozens of global corporations as a consultant, trainer, coach, and speaker. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512 771 1117

Sharon Drew Morgen February 19th, 2018

Posted In: News

There are currently more than 165,000 healthcare apps used for a variety of purposes – helping patients routinize new dietary choices and exercise programs, patient engagement, collecting measurements and feedback for providers, managing clinical trials, and care coordination to name a few. The virtual healthcare system is revolutionizing health care. It’s exciting.

But to me, one element seems missing: other than a few attempts at behavior modification, I haven’t noticed any targeted capability to formalize lasting patient compliance. We’re providing patients the What and Why, but not doing such a great job on the How. It’s a conundrum: Why don’t patients do what they know they need to do? Why isn’t a rational argument, or a health scare, or trust in a provider, enough to inspire behavior change?

KNOWLEDGE DOESN’T ENABLE BEHAVIOR CHANGE

For those times we believe our patients need to change behaviors for improved health benefits, we’re not doing such a great job of helping them change. Indeed, we’re asking patients to change before they know how, causing resistance and non-compliance. But with a slight adjustment it’s possible to help them adopt and routinize new health-driven behaviors – in office or on apps – and avoid resistance completely. The first element to consider is behavior. What are behaviors, and why are they so hard to change?

Behaviors are merely the expression – the representation – of our Beliefs; the translations of our values into practice; our Beliefs in action. Without Beliefs as the foundation of our actions, new behaviors have no source.

Think of it this way: behaviors express our Beliefs much like the functionality of a software program – the upward movement of an arm on a robot, for example – is a result of the programming. To change the output, to make the robot’s arm do something different, you don’t start by changing the functionality; you first change the coding, the programming that causes the robot’s arm to move. A change in the programming will automatically change the functionality. It’s the same with people: our behaviors merely carry out what our internal programming (our human system, as I call it) dictates, regardless of the problems that result or the efficacy of a solution that might adjust them.

CHANGE IS A SYSTEMS PROBLEM

Each of us operates out of a unique, unconscious, human, adaptive system of rules and goals, beliefs and values, history and foundational norms that enable us to show up every day and operate in our own unique way. Our personal system is our status quo. It represents who we are and the organizing principles that we wake up with. It’s habituated, normalized, accepted, and replicated day after day, year after year, including what created and maintains our potentially flawed behaviors. It’s who we are, the identity and internal rules and Beliefs from which we derive our politics and religion and opinions; and we’ll do whatever it takes to maintain it and remain congruent – operate daily as who we know ourselves to be. The problems – the bugs, inadequacies, bad habits, quirks and personality traits – are baked in; we adopt clever, idiosyncratic workarounds to maintain them because, well, they’re part of our system and we adapt: gaining weight? Buy a bigger size. Coughing a lot? Suck on lozenges.

When we offer patients suggestions that haven’t been incorporated into their system, we’re actually threatening who they are and how they see themselves; regardless of their need to change or the efficacy of the offered solution, we’re actually asking people to

act incongruently,
change without giving them the means to,
take on new actions that have not been programmed in to their system,
get buy-in from the very rules that created the problem to begin with.

Of course we offer healthy options. But that’s not the point; their resistance is unconscious. Until or unless someone recognizes that a proposed change won’t cause permanent disruption to who they are, AND can discover how their beliefs, goals and routines can safely, congruently expand to include new behaviors, AND manage any fallout in a way that leaves the system butter-side-up, people will not change regardless of their need or your solution.

PATIENT EXAMPLE

Here’s a very simple example. Years ago, my neighbor Maria came over crying. It seems she was just diagnosed as pre-diabetic and had to change her eating habits including discontinuing her beloved tortillas. As a Hispanic woman with a very large family living nearby, she was known as Tortilla Abuela and supplied tortillas for all family functions. There were kids and grandkids around all the time seeking tortillas; Abuela was constantly at the stove making them. I’m not sure I ever saw her without her apron on. Of course she and her husband Joe ate them at every meal.

I brought her to Whole Foods and we found healthy non-grain flour and types of healthier shortening, but we knew it wouldn’t be the same. Maria gallantly tried for two weeks but she and the family were miserable; she finally gave up and went back to the lard and starch. “What can I do? It’s who I am.” she said.

I posed a Facilitative Question to help her figure out how to make change and still remain compliant with her Beliefs and status quo:

Facilitative Question: What would you need to know or believe differently to be able to provide your family the food they depend on you for, and still eat in a healthy way so you’ll be cooking for them for a long, long time?

Answer: I’d need to find a new way to get them tortillas that taste like mine, replace what I can’t eat with healthy options that my family will still love, and still be the one they depend on for favorite foods.

Now we had a direction to go. Food and tortillas were part of her core identity – baked in to her system, and necessary for her to maintain her role as family nourisher. We set about finding a route through to health AND food AND family. On reflection, Maria recognized her daughter Susanna made tortillas almost as good as hers, and, aside from her famous tortillas, her family loved her green enchiladas (sans tortillas, they were healthy and compliant with her doc’s suggestions) almost as much as her tortillas.

Her workaround was quite creative, one that I, as an outsider to her family, could never have conceived. She invited everyone over for dinner and served her famous enchiladas. Then, in grand presentation fashion complete with a bow, formally handed the tortilla implements to Susanna. She announced that because of her new health issues that kept her from eating tortillas, Susanna would now be Tortilla Tia but she’d still be making the green enchiladas for every family function. The family would get their tortillas and their enchiladas, and have a healthy Abuela.

WHAT TO ADD TO HEALTHCARE APPS

In our passion as healthcare providers we forget that regardless of our bona fides, the patient’s need, or the trust we’ve acquired, we’re outsiders: we cannot effect change for the patient; they must design their own path to congruent change.

When we design apps that offer patients our choices, ask patients for information we need, and don’t include an ability for them to design their own path to compliance in line with their own system of Beliefs, rules and experiences, we’re overlooking the need to facilitate patients through their change process.

Over the past decades, I’ve developed a Change Facilitation model I’ve taught to sales people, coaches, and leaders that facilitates their internal, personal decision path through to congruent change. In the sales industry, I’ve trained Buying Facilitation® for the past 35 years to many global corporations – around 100,000 people in companies such as IBM, Kaiser, Cancer Treatment Center of America, Morgan Stanley, KPMG, DuPont, California Closets, etc. – to results that far exceed those achieved by the sales model alone (In pilot studies, we’ve consistently achieved close rates of 40% using the same list that the control groups closed 5%.); we teach potential buyers – regardless of the price/complexity of a solution – how to organize themselves around the change of adding a new solution before we sell. In other words, this model has already been tested.

It involves several skills to facilitate unbiased guidance to help people make their unconscious more conscious, including 1. a new type of question that acts as a GPS to guide people along their own normalized, idiosyncratic route of change; 2. stops along each of the 13 change steps that all human systems traverse to make congruent change. Here’s a brief overview of two of the skills involved with the process:

Facilitative Questions: a new form of question that uses specific non-biased words in a specific sequence to lead people through their own internal, congruent, change process, to avoid resistance and advance discovery. They’re not information gathering, pull, manipulative, or biased by the needs of the Questioner; it’s a sort of GPS that efficiently moves people, without bias, through their own largely unconscious systems to design a path to congruent change while creating trust along the way [Note: especially on an app, it’s important to establish a ‘trusting relationship’ with users.]. Usually asked within a series, here’s a very simplistic example of a Facilitative Question.

How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle?

As a contrast, here’s a simple conventional information-pull question that matches the needs and biases of the Questioner (and note: all conventional questions are information-pull, driven by the [biased] needs of the questioner):

Why do you wear your hair like that?

It’s possible to design Facilitative Questions in a generic fashion that can

traverse the sequence a patient’s brain uses to
recognize the norms that must be addressed,
adapt the status quo, add and routinize new behaviors congruently,
facilitate buy-in, Belief change, and compliance with new programs

as an add-on to healthcare apps. Additionally, it’s possible to message our questions and requests – patient intake forms and surveys, search for patients who will remain compliant during the length of a study, the incorporation of family to support the change – so patients can respond without resistance.

Change Facilitation: although patients know there’s something wrong and probably should do something differently, they can’t permanently change until their system

recognizes how, when, and where to change without anhialation or disruption,
doesn’t feel threatened or resistant and achieves buy-in from the effected parts,
designs a route between the old and the new in a way that maintains Systems Congruence.

Our apps can add a front-end feature that employs Facilitative Questions in the right sequence, to lead patients through their own idiosyncratic steps of change so they can plot a path that matches their own Beliefs, rules, and life experience. We can enable healthcare apps to first facilitate patient buy-in, highlight their potential points of resistance as the change progresses, and help them design a route through to congruent, enduring compliance, regardless of the change desired – routinized exercise and food regimens, patient retention, patient engagement, and data collection for example.

I’d like to help be part of the effort that affords patients the ability to choose health, positioning providers to be true Servant Leaders. I look forward to working with the healthcare industry to optimize patient engagement.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker, inventor, and author of a NYTimes Business Bestseller (Selling with Integrity) and two Amazon Bestsellers (Dirty Little Secrets – why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) as well as 7 other books and 1700 published articles.She is the inventor of Buying Facilitation® and Change Facilitation models that help influencers help their clients to manage congruent change. Sharon Drew founded The Dystonia Society while living in the UK, during her stint as the founder of a tech start up in 1983. Sharon Drew lives on a floating home, on the Columbia River in Portland OR. Her blog award winning blog, www.sharondrewmorgen.com, features original essays on sales, leadership, communication, systems, change, and influencing. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen January 22nd, 2018

Posted In: News

The hot new sales tool is Opportunity Management automation. Just another in a long list of New New Things that seem like THE answer to THE way to efficiently close more sales. But is it? Over the past 10 or so years you’ve tried Buyer Personas, Understanding Need, marketing automation, Relationship Management, Trusted Advisor, Challenger, Sandler, SPIN, and lots of technology to push content. All hoping hoping hoping that THIS is ‘the one’ that will help you close more. But you’ve ended up with the same 5% close rate you’ve had for decades (It used to be 7%, remember?), regardless of the approach or the way an opportunity is managed.

Don’t get me wrong: opportunity management apps help sellers optimize their time and track results. But to what end? The tools can’t close more sales if the opportunity itself is flawed. What if you could find more viable opportunities by expanding your definition of ‘opportunity’?

WHAT’S AN OPPORTUNITY?

As I’m sure you’re aware, an ‘opportunity’ is often not an opportunity at all, or has only a small chance of being one. What if buyers aren’t your target audience? What if the larger opportunity is in a different place along the buying decision journey?

With the sales model based on entry points of ‘buyer’, ‘need’, Buyer Personas, and ‘need/solution’ match it’s impossible to close anyone but the low hanging fruit – buyers seeking a solution. This definition

restricts your close rate to those people or groups who have gotten themselves ready to bring in an outside solution (5% with sales outreach; 0.00059% of online marketing outreach) and are ready, willing, and able to buy;
assumes that those with a seeming ‘need’ is a prospect (They’re not. ‘Need’ does not equal ‘Buyer’ – but you know that by now);
focuses questions, content, and relationship-creating skills with a bias toward placing a solution (ignoring the vital non-solution, systemic, change management, Pre-Sales steps that have no relevance to, but precede, buying anything);
doesn’t sort for differences between someone who is strategically en route to becoming a buyer vs someone you’ve determined SHOULD buy and has a 95% chance of NOT buying;
uses tools to pushpushpush what YOU want to sell (into a prospect’s private, personal, closed system of cultural norms and givens that outsiders aren’t part of), and closing merely 5%;

and restricts you from finding those who WILL close, aren’t quite ready, and could use your help efficiently getting there. The confusing part for sellers is that these folks – these real, potential buyers – are off your screen: they aren’t buyers, aren’t seeking a solution, haven’t determined they want to buy anything yet, haven’t yet fully determined the scope of their need, aren’t attracted by your content.

And therein lies the rub: before people become buyers they merely want to resolve a problem in the most efficacious way and their route to competence is initially not directly related to what you’re selling. Before people become buyers, before there is a sales opportunity, they must first conclude there is absolutely no route to resolving their problems with known resources AND have a route through to congruent change – internal adoption, buy-in, Systems Congruence, and change management. The last thing they want to do is go outside their system to buy anything – they never start out as buyers until they run out of options to fix a problem themselves. By putting on a wholly different hat, we can find and facilitate the ones who will BECOME buyers and vastly increase our pool of opportunities. But we can’t use a ‘sales’ hat to find them.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRECEDES BUYING

A buying decision is a change management problem first before it’s needs- solution-based. Buyers are merely people who have gotten to the point in their change management procedures when an external solution (i.e. making a purchase) is their only viable alternative to Excellence. The fact that people have a ‘need’ that your solution can resolve does NOT mean they are, or will ever be, ready, willing, or able to buy. There is a 95% chance that those who seem like buyers aren’t buyers at the point where your content finds them. And sadly, your content won’t get them there: they won’t even notice it because they’re not yet looking for it even though they may eventually seek it.

It’s possible to shift the ‘opportunity’ criteria to people who WILL be buyers but aren’t ones yet – and know how to recognize real buyers from ‘tire kickers’ on the first contact; there are far easier entry points into a buyer/seller dialogue than what might seem to the outsider like a ‘need’.

Before becoming a buyer, or having a fully defined need, people traverse a specific path (I’ve spent decades coding and defining, training and testing, the 13 steps in a buying decision path, as explained in www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com) between recognizing a problem, assembling the proper stakeholders to buy-in, managing any negative consequences of change, and deciding to make a purchase; they become buyers only at step 10 once they agree that making a purchase is their best option.

In other words, there are 9 non-buying change management (Pre-Sales) steps people take as they figure out how to congruently solve their problem and manage the change an external factor will cause. Using a Change Facilitation lens, with a bias toward the steps of congruent change, we can enter earlier to efficiently facilitate real prospective buyers and be part of their system as they begin the buying process. It’s possible to expand your criteria and tool kit to connect along different stages of the decision journey and recognize/facilitate exactly who WILL become buyers but aren’t there yet. But your initial focus must be systemic change, not selling. Different questions, different listening.

Using ‘need’ and ‘solution placement’ criteria, the only way to attract an opportunity is to find those relative few who have gotten to the point of recognizing they cannot resolve their own problem. Until then, they cannot buy: they haven’t fully defined a ‘need’, don’t have their full Buying Decision Team (BDT) in place, haven’t gotten buy-in, and aren’t actively seeking to buy anything. Selling is tactical: buying is strategic.

WHO IS A BUYER?

Think along with me for a moment. A person or group doesn’t become a buyer unless they’ve determined they cannot fix their problem themselves with familiar resources AND they are set up (environment, culture, technology, implementation, buy-in) to manage any fallout from having a foreign element (a purchase) enter their system. Maintaining Systems Congruence is vital; the last thing, literally, that a person wants is to buy anything due to the possibility of disrupting their status quo that is functioning ‘well-enough’. Indeed until they

have a plan to manage their strategic, idiosyncratic, private activities and are convinced they will end up with Systems Congruence;
have assembled their full complement of stakeholders and understand their full complement of buy-in and change issues (including ‘need’);
are congruently ready to seek purchasing options;

they’re only ‘people’ meandering through a confounding route to Excellence, facing political issues, personnel/personal issues, buy-in issues, tech integration issues, etc. They’re not buyers regardless of what you consider to be an ‘opportunity’, how many appointments you make, or how well the folks like you. And the way sales is implemented and biased toward solution placement, the questions posed, the answers sought, you’re only seeking and attracting those who have already reached step 10 and consider themselves buyers.

What’s the difference between an ‘opportunity’ and one that’s NOT an opportunity?

There’s no opportunity to place a solution with a prospect until they’vea. fully assembled their entire BDT including ‘Joe’ in the back office who you never get to speak with but who’s a huge influencer,
b. tried workarounds to fix the problem themselves with familiar resources,
c. fully recognized the change management issues that would potentially cause a breakdown should they bring anything in (buy something) without appropriate change management and
d. determined that the cost of a purchase is less than continuing their status quo.

With a bias toward placing a solution, you try to ‘get in’, ‘find a need’ and ‘have a relationship’ based on your desire to sell, gathering biased, wrong or incomplete data, leading to false assumptions of Buyer Readiness. Until they’re buyers, they haven’t fully defined their need or what it would take to fix (although BDT members might research your solution or reach out to you to gain knowledge).
When you make an appointment to ‘begin a relationship’ and the full BDT is not present, you are neither connecting nor starting a relationship. What portion of the BDT does the person you’re meeting with represent? Where are they along their decision path? How do you know the rest of the full BDT agrees with that assessment? How will they use, or convey, the data you present? Are you pitching what THEY need to hear to address their internal change problems?
Until the prospects recognize they cannot fix their problem with known resources AND have a strategic plan to implement any necessary change that a new solution might cause (even for a cheap, or personal, or small, item), they’re not buyers. Just because you think there’s a need doesn’t mean they will end up buying anything.
On route to fixing a problem with known resources, people often have a plethora of choices that you’re not familiar with that may provide them with a congruent outcome that does NOT include a purchase. I can’t say this enough; the last thing people need is to bring in an unfamiliar vendor/product: the cost of disruption may not be worth the price of a fix.

Your identification of an ‘opportunity’ is currently based on your biases, assumptions, conversations with a fraction of the full BDT, assessments, research, etc. based on the fit that YOU perceive between what YOU’VE determined (or that one outlier from the BDT) they need – and your solution. What you think is an opportunity most likely isn’t. Otherwise you’d be closing more than 5%. Data collected from my control groups when I train show it’s possible to close about 5X more than you’re closing now by entering earlier along their change path and using a Change Facilitation skill first. More on this in a moment.

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY SOUNDS LIKE

Here’s what you’ll hear when there is a real opportunity (and yes, even on the first call, using a Change Facilitation skill set focus):

All stakeholders are on board already. When you speak with someone who still needs approval, or hasn’t assembled the full complement of stakeholders yet (and even your prospects often don’t know the full complement of stakeholders). Note to sellers: you cannot ask someone specifically if their BDT is fully on board – they won’t know , and can’t offer, an accurate answer until near the end of their journey. But you can help them assemble the right people quickly – just not with the sales model. They always forget ‘Joe’ and HR, for example, and then must go back to the beginning;
All change management elements are recognized with a plan to move forward. I.e.: the users are developing their criteria for a new piece of software, and the techies have a specific integration and implementation plan; participants for a training program are ready to interview you to see if you meet their criteria, etc. In other words, they’re aware of their stumbling points and are already in the process of handling them;
The prospect wants to set up a meeting with you and the rest of the Buying Decision Team to discuss their expectations and criteria for choosing you.

When you make an appointment with only one or two people you don’t have a real opportunity. If the person you’re speaking with thinks s/he has a need but hasn’t gotten team buy-in yet, or doesn’t know the complete set of potential disruptors that need managing, there’s no opportunity. If your prospect is going to take your information back to the boss/manager, there’s no opportunity. If a prospect calls you for information, there’s most likely no opportunity (although you can use this time to begin the Change Facilitation process).

I don’t consider a 95% failure rate success; you’ve just convinced yourself that this is the way it is for your industry. Let’s change it to be more successful. Instead of running after people once they become buyers, why not find those who are already en route to buying, use a different focus and new skill set such as Buying Facilitation® (the model I’ve developed to handle Pre-Sales Change Facilitation) or some change management tool to enter earlier in their change/decision journey, quickly facilitate them through their change, and THEN sell.

It’s not rocket science. You’re current selling/solution-placement modality restricts you to fighting for those who have defined themselves as buyers. People really need help determining how to change congruently. But the time it takes them to do so is the length of the sales cycle. You’re wasting your time chasing the 5% and ignoring the 80% of prospective buyers who WILL buy within two years of connecting with you but can’t until they’ve got their ducks in a row. But you can hasten their journey by first becoming Neutral Navigators doing a Change Facilitation process and THEN wear a ‘seller’ hat. Then you’ll stop wasting time and resource with those who aren’t buyers and truly serve those who WILL buy become buyers much quicker. But no amount of content, relationship, or Opportunity Management will force those who aren’t, or who will never be, ready. You’re waiting while people do this anyway. Help them. Close more. And have more opportunities to manage.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the developer of a Change Facilitation model used in sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, healthcare, and management. She’s been running Buying Facilitation® and How Buyers Buy training programs in global corporations since 1985. She is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers 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 has trained over 100,000 sales people globally, and is currently running Listening programs to facilitate unbiased listening. Her blog is consistently ranked in the top 10 of all sales/marketing blogs. Sharon Drew is considered an original thinker and thought leader, doing keynotes, coaching, and consulting to enable servant leader skills. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen August 28th, 2017

Posted In: Change Management, News, Sales

Part 1. Do you know the difference between how you sell and how buyers buy – and why the difference matters? After a conversation with my colleague Erik Luhrs I’d like to expand the definition of ‘buying’. But first, a question:

Would you like to enter, influence, or understand your buyer’s buying process earlier in their process?

To do so, it will be helpful to better understand the differences between how you sell, and how buyers buy.

SELLING VS BUYING

Let me start with a made-up story:

Background: Pretend you’re a sales person selling smartphones in a big box store. You know your product well and are great at selling it. When buyers come in you carefully pose questions to understand their problem and need, and then position your answers accordingly to help them choose their solution.

A buyer comes in. She has performed some or all of these by the time she meets you:

She thought long and hard about replacing a phone she loved, and somewhat reluctantly decided it might be time to buy a new one; she had been resisting due to her comfort with the (limited) functionality she enjoyed.
She called friends to find out the upsides and downsides of what they liked about their phones and providers, to add to her list of considerations and comparisons.
She went online to gather data from what she learned from friends and ads she’d seen.
From her thinking and online research, she put together her list of buying criteria she’d need to have before being fully comfortable with any change: the pluses and minuses of changing phones, functionality, models, and/or providers; the ease of learning a new phone. Also, she included the trust factors she’d need to consider for new providers.
As per friends’ advice she contacted her current provider to learn of any deals for the models she was considering; she looked up prices on Amazon, Best Buy, etc. to compare prices and functionality. She weighed all of her criteria and made a decision.
Choice/decision made, she went to the store to purchase the phone with the help of the seller.

Until Step 5 this buyer had not fully defined her problem or her complete set of needs (some of which having nothing to do with a specific solution). Understanding the specifics of her problem or one phone over another was only a portion of her many decision criteria.

Until Step 5, her activities were idiosyncratic, criteria-driven, not fully formed, and independent of a specific solution, and included other ‘decision makers/influencers’ (her friends).

If a seller had entered before Steps 5, asking about needs would ignore some of her most important decision factors and not address her ability to define her personal criteria, not factor in her friends’ recommendations, or her ease and resistance to anything new as per her current phone.

To summarize, by the time this customer shows up to buy, she has

gone through an idiosyncratic, personal discovery process
to understand and get comfortable with the range of criteria she wants to meet
to decide whether or not to buy a new phone and
researched and considered all angles of all types of solutions and providers
before finally deciding to buy.

To clarify jobs and roles:

Seller: meticulously understands the product he is selling; differentiates his solution and brand from the competition; works with buyers to gather data, understand needs and underlying problem, place the appropriate solution. THIS CONSTITUTES SALES.

Buyer: figures out her emotional- and values-based criteria for buying something and for making a change; figures out what, when, if to buy; gets references from friends on several possibilities; does research; contacts current vendors; compares prices and solutions. THIS CONSTITUTES BUYING.

THE BUYING DECISION PROCESS IS ONLY PARTIALLY SOLUTION-DRIVEN

You do some of the same things during your buying decision process. We all do. Our prospects and clients do also. No one begins at the end – the point of choosing a solution. No one (especially the more complex B2B sales) begins by knowing their full landscape of considerations. Usually others are involved with defining the full range of unique criteria. Always, there are hidden aspects of historic considerations that come into play. And all this must happen well before defining solutions. That means buyers cannot know the full complexity of the problem or need at the point sellers usually attempt to gather information.

I would hereby like to (re)define the term Buying Decision (a term I coined in 1985) to mean: The process a buyer goes through to get their ducks in a row to manage all of the factors involved prior to, and including, making a purchase.

Is there a case to be made for assuming all buyers – regardless of the solution they seek – go through some form of ‘Pre-Sales’ decisions? That Steps 1-6 (there are 13 steps in B2B sales) are part of the Buying Decision Path – and not just step 6 in which the sales person and specific solution are involved?

Is there something to be gained by entering and influencing the Buying Decision Path before buyers have clearly defined their problem? If so, the sales process is not the best way to begin: it limits sales people to finding those buyers who have gone through their pre-sales processes already.

Part 2 (next week) explains what happens when we sell too early, and introduces a way to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales, criteria-based buying decision path. Right now, sellers close approximately 5% of their prospects (starting with first call) because the sales approach is directed toward understanding problems and placing solutions before they have been fully formed. But we can get much better results by entering earlier. We just can’t do it with the sales model alone.

__________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 31st, 2017

Posted In: News

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