News – Page 3 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

The CEO of a midsized company recently called me after reading my article on avoiding resistance during a change initiative. He said ‘resistance management’ was built into all their projects due to its prevalence. Curious, I asked him to send me a typical project flow chart. The problem was obvious: ‘people implementation’ was #6.

Resistance management has become standard in change management initiatives. Indeed resistance is so common that hundreds, if not thousands, of books, articles and programs (including a department in Harvard) are dedicated to managing it.

But resistance is only triggered when two necessary elements are overlooked:

People: Too often change management processes are led, designed, and organized by a few ‘leaders’ who tend to overlook some of the folks further down the food chain. It’s necessary to put people #1 to include their voices, unique and vital information, ideas, needs, and early buy-in of everyone who is either part of the problem or who will be part of the solution.

Systems: Any change must include not only behavior changes, but amendments to the underlying system – the rules, beliefs, assumptions, practices, expectations, and norms that have held the status quo in place.

By overlooking people and systems, and with a focus limited to changing behaviors, resistance is a typical output as the cost, the risk, of change is unknown. With a shift in thinking it’s possible to prevent resistance entirely. In this essay I’ll provide thinking on how to accomplish this.

WHAT IS CHANGE?

Theoretically, we’re delighted to change, to realize our best selves, solve a problem, find better solutions and learn new things. But unless the risk of the proposed change is known, understood, and managed; unless the stability, beliefs and norms of the system are maintained, the system will resist change.

Change is an alteration to a system (defined as a set of beliefs and rules that are agreed to by people (or things) included) and entails modifying an existing structure that has been working well-enough for some time, accepted by all, and habituated into the daily norms.

Current change management models focus on changing the problematic behaviors/activity but ignore addressing the norms and beliefs that have created and maintain the system. Without simultaneously managing or shifting the hidden systems issues that have been keeping the defined problem in place, the system faces an unknown risk and will resist.

Before agreeing to change, the system must know:

How will the new match the existing beliefs, values, norms, rules, routines? Are they compatible? Are the core beliefs/values of the group maintained?
How will daily tasks and working/reporting relationships change?
How are individual ego beliefs and job identity factors managed? Are the folks most affected by the new included in information gathering and goal setting at the beginning so they have input around their own (new) jobs? Do these folks get a voice in generating the goals and outputs for a new solution? In sharing their unique experiences to best understand the problem from the customer side?
What must be relearned and in what time frame?
What if the new doesn’t represent the output needed by those most affected?

Without answers to questions like these, change becomes a threat and folks will resist doing anything different. Below I discuss a route to determining risk and generating buy-in.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

There are actually 13 steps that all change takes, most of which occur before a problem can be accurately diagnosed or the goal defined. By enlisting these in your change management processes, you’ll have a good chance to avoid resistance.

Sample

Note: While seemingly a book on helping buyers buy, Dirty Little Secrets is about the 13 steps of change/decision making.

Here are the main categories involved:

1. Where are you? What’s missing?
The full problem set can be understood only when everyone who touches the existing problem and will be involved with the new solution are assembled to share their thoughts. How did the problem occur? How has it been maintained over time? What systems, rules, relationships, job descriptions are maintained per the existing circumstances? How would they change as a result of doing things differently? What might the fallout be?

Without knowing this, it’s impossible to get an accurate understanding of the full data set involved or set an precise goal. When leaders and senior managers propose goals for a project without including input from these folks or without recognizing the possible risks the change might trigger, it’s a certainty that time delays, inadequate results, lack of buy-in and resistance are sure to follow.

Too often leadership develops a change project without appropriate input, working only from their unique perspective. Unfortunately, I hear the same thing repeatedly: “Leadership knows the full problem set. They don’t need to call in front-line workers. They’re smart enough to figure it out for themselves.” This assumption is responsible for a cascading array of follow-on problems.
2. How can the system fix the problem with available resources?

Change doesn’t happen unless the system itself recognizes an incongruence. And unless available resources are disqualified, anything new will be questioned. The questions to be answered are:

- - - What has prevented this problem from being resolved already?
    - What is keeping this problem in place? (rules, jobs, outputs)
    - Is there anything we already have that might solve our problem if used differently? Any known consultants? Apps?

3. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a great way to discover everything and include everyone. For large companies it’s possible to assign representative work teams that bring back the ideas to a main (and representative!) team. Note: it’s vital that everyone’s ideas get included as each job role will have different needs and ideas. Generally, leaders don’t have day-to-day contact with customers and cannot know the full set of issues that must be included in any change initiative.

Brainstorming should include:

- - - The foundational beliefs/values to work from
    - Random ideas for solutions from each department/working group
    - Managing the elements holding the old in place and what would change if it’s altered
    - What are the risks to making a change? To not making a change? Is the risk of change more/less than maintaining the status quo?
    - Possible solutions (to include workarounds)
      - The risks of each
      - The danger signs that indicate upcoming problems

4. Managing risk
The risk of change must be equal to or lower than the risk of status quo.

Change can’t proceed successfully unless the risk of change is understood and approved by all. During brainstorming, it’s vital that possible risks get discussed, and the signs of possible failure be understood and managed beforehand.

There are several types of risks involved in change projects:

- - When folks are left out, there’s incomplete data to work from and goal-setting might be flawed and folks who touch customers might not buy-in. Obviously this is a risk to the company, the customers, and revenue.
  - The risks each group face from a change must be understood and accounted for before the project goals are set.
  - When the core beliefs and values of the company or team are omitted from the identified outcome, people will resist and feel at risk.

It’s only when

a.  everyone who is involved with the problem and will touch the solution,
b.  the core beliefs and values are agreed-upon by all involved at the start as the foundation of the change,
c.   the risks are understood and steps are in place to manage them,
d.  the Group chooses the specific goals to be met and what specifically an outcome must include

that it’s possible to avoid resistance.

I suggest it’s possible to manage change in a way that encourages buy-in and avoids resistance, garners the full data set with which to set goals and expectations, conclude with a new behavior/belief outcome that can be maintained through time.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Change is a multi-faceted endeavor that needs to include both behavior, belief, and systems changes:

- - To lead folks think to think and act differently takes belief change and buy-in.
  - To clarify the intent of a change requires unbiased questions (I’ve invented a wholly new form of question called Facilitative Questions ™ that avoids bias entirely).
  - To engage people to feel safe enough to act in new ways takes inclusion and being heard.
  - To collaborate, organize, build new teams, set goals, and manage takes new leadership skills that involve ‘soft’ skills.
  - To align stakeholders and design solutions takes collaboration.

While many models claim to do the above, our current tools don’t teach how to accomplish it. My book HOW? not only lays out the steps but teaches Faciltative Questions that facilitate core decision making with no bias; a new form of listening that hears accurately; and the full compliment of the steps of change.

Sample

As a good starting point, I suggest the following be the core framework:

Our goal is to have/do _______ to alleviate/fix _______ and will include ______ group/departments to help us define the problem and generate a solution design. We understand that any change must include these underlying beliefs, norms, and rules: ________. We understand that the risks of not including these are _______; the danger signs we’ll experience if we’ve left anything important out include _______ that we will address by _______.

If you would like to develop a change management process for your team, or get help with an initiative triggering resistance, call me to discuss: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

___________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen January 13th, 2025

Posted In: News

When my son George was born in 1972 I was determined to give him attributes I found compelling: kindness, respect and an awareness of others, creativity, a willingness to listen and to collaborate. To accomplish this, I kept TV out of the house, gave him creative toys like blocks, Legos, and art supplies like paints and pipe cleaners. I brought him to theater and galleries as was age appropriate. I began teaching him colors at the Picasso exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum when he was 18 months old and in a backpack. I began a storytelling routine so I could instill in him the skills to listen. Yup. I was raising a creative, kind leader.

By the time he was 2, George was making guns with his pipe cleaners, drawing pictures of rocket ships and army tanks. Where did he gain an affinity to guns? How did he know about army tanks? No idea. But it wasn’t from me.

Eventually he turned into a professional jock (Ok. I’m proud. He’s a silver-medal Olympian.) and a game hunter (Not so proud.). But he’s not creative, certainly listens with very biased and judgmental ears, and only kind under a gruff exterior. How did I not raise the person I tried to raise? Sure, it was ‘nature’. But where did the ‘nurture’ go?

DO MEN WANT THE SKILLS TO CONNECT?

I have come to believe that men and women have vastly different communication skills and assumptions that seem gender specific, so obvious in this story: Friends recently did construction on their house. When they showed me around, one of the new rooms had 5 comfy leather chairs lined up side by side facing a huge TV screen. It was obviously a Man Cave. I started to laugh.

Peter: What’s so funny?

SD: This is obviously your man cave.

Peter: Why is it so obvious?

SD: Women would never line chairs up like that. They’d be in a semi-circle.

Peter: Why would you do that?

SD: So we could engage with each other, communicate, see and hear each other.

Peter: But why would I want to do that?

Right. Why.

THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

I was the second woman on a public Board of Directors in the UK in 1986. I quickly learned to keep quiet during our Board meetings: men would over-talk me when I spoke; seize and spout my ideas to broad approval with no attribution; fail to invite me to meetings even though my group was bringing in 142% of the net profit of the company. I was once so furious tears of rage seeped out of one eye. “Awwww. Let’s give Sharon-Drew a moment to compose herself,” said the Chairman. “I have no need to compose myself. I’m just enraged at all of you.” Funny, but the next meeting one of the other Board members cried. As women have done for centuries, I had given them permission.

Times have changed a bit. But why, why, has it been such a struggle? And why, why are women in leadership still uncommon? 25% of leadership positions go to women, even though 60% of the workforce are women; 5% of women’s start-ups get funding; 20% of companies have at least one woman on their Board, and there are 53 women CEOs – 9% – in the Fortune 500.

There are lots of reasons offered as to why the numbers are so low: women have babies and aren’t represented in the workplace; women aren’t accepted into the Boys Club and don’t have the mentors to provide them a leg-up; men don’t respect women and won’t listen to them; women don’t play by the rules. Obviously these are all silly. And yet.

Much has been written about the differences between men’s and women’s leadership styles. And yes, it’s been proven that working for a woman leader offers more success – staff are happier, there’s less turnover, more profit is generated, teams work better with a more creative output. For sure more women are being hired in leadership roles. But it’s not enough and it’s not representational.

Given that we make up 51% of the population, women are misrepresented, leaving their experience, ideas, people-orientation and leadership capabilities outside of standard practice.

Instead business employs timeworn bastions of testosterone-laden traditions that put technology, rules, time, and money where relationships, kindness, service, people, and collaboration should be.

And it’s costing us via increased stress levels, dysfunctional teams, lost and disloyal clients, incomplete roll-outs, and far, far too much hubris.

WOMEN HAVE GREAT SKILLS

With so many excuses as to why women aren’t promoted to leadership positions, maybe it’s time to explain precisely why women make great leaders.

We care. That’s right. We not only care about the bottom line, our place in the market, our regard among competitors. We care about people – staff, teams, creativity, well-being. In my company I gave staff one week and $2,000 a year (in the mid-1980s) to take some type of program that wasn’t work-related to boost their creativity and expand their thinking. They had to take one day off a month to do volunteer work in the community. They weren’t given vacation days but told to take off whatever time they needed to maintain their creativity and clarity, so long as they covered the work. But they were having so much fun at work I literally had to push them out the door to take time off.
We listen. Women not only listen for details, but we closely attend to differences in speaking patterns so we can ascertain shifts, problems, feelings. Our listening enables us to bond with another’s humanity, not for what they’re doing but who they’re being.
We’re curious. When women notice a problem, we get curious. Instead of going straight into action, we wonder about its origination, how to fix it from inside, how to assemble the right people to design a fix. And then we trial different approaches, get team agreement for different outcomes.
We’re problem solvers. And not in conventional ways, but often out-of-the-box thinking.
We’re risk takers. This is a well-known fact. Women have less fear of failure then men, with a greater understanding of possibilities. Since we’ve had to go-it alone, we’re willing to offend the status quo.
We communicate. We inspire discussions, ask questions, pose hypotheticals. We start conversations where there is too much silence. We don’t do denial.
We collaborate. Working in groups is natural. If you’ve ever done an exercise where everyone in the room is given 6 pipe cleaners and told to make a ‘reporting’ structure, all the men attach each to the ones above and below. Women make a daisy chain, in a circle. It’s endemic.
We work to the future. Instead of taking steps sequentially with a perfect forward-moving plan, we think in systems, in circles. We see the aggregate and try different actions to cause change as a whole.

I will never understand the full set of reasons given why women are kept out of leadership positions. But I do know that by leaving us out, our companies suffer, lose market share and profit and have diminished creativity and kindness.

It seems that in today’s workplace, change is afoot. I look forward to there being an equal number of men and women leaders someday. And just maybe we can all raise our sons in an environment where kindness doesn’t have to be hidden, and equality and respect is the norm.

______________________

Sharon Drew Morgen November 11th, 2024

Posted In: News

We all know the importance of listening, of connecting with others by deeply hearing them share thoughts, ideas, and feelings that enable us to be present and authentic. We work hard at listening without judgment, carefully, with our full attention. But are we hearing others without bias? I contend we’re not.

WHAT IS LISTENING?

From the work I’ve done tracking how words and sound enter brains, I believe that listening is far more than hearing words and understanding another’s shared thoughts and feelings. Listening is actually a brain thing that has little do to with meaning. It’s about puffs of air.

Indeed, there are several problems with us accurately hearing what someone says, regardless of our intent to show up as empathetic listeners. Generally speaking, our brains determine what we hear. And they weren’t designed to be objective. There are two primary reasons:

Words are meant to transmit meaning, yet they emerge from our mouths smooshed together in a singular gush with no spaces between them. Our brains then have the herculean task of deciphering individual sounds, individual word breaks, unique definitions, to understand their meaning. No one speaks with spaces between words. Otherwise. It. Would. Sound. Like. This. Hearing impaired people face this problem with new cochlear implants: it takes about a year for them to learn to decipher individual words, where one word ends and the next begins.
When others speak, their words enter our ears as puffs of air – sound vibrations that have no meaning at all. None. We only ‘understand’ or ‘hear what’s been said’ after these vibrations go through several iterations as electrochemical signals, being distorted and deleted along the way before finally being translated into meaning by our existing circuits. And our brain doesn’t tell us what was deleted or distorted, leaving Listeners to incorrectly assume that what they think they heard is what the speaker meant.

What we think we hear is not necessarily what a Speaker intends to share. Here’s my definition of listening that includes the full set of brain factors:

Listening is an automatic, biological, electrochemical, physiological, mechanical process during which spoken words, as meaningless, incoming puffs of air, eventually get translated into meaning via existing neural circuitry.

In other words, there is no direct route between what was said and what’s heard. Hence the reason for arguments, confusion, and all kinds of errors in communication.

HOW BRAINS LISTEN

Like most people, I had thought that if I gave my undivided attention and listened ‘without judgment’, I’d be able to hear what a Speaker intended. But I was wrong.

When writing my book on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I was quite dismayed when I learned that what a Speaker says and what a Listener hears are often two different things.

Sample

It’s not for want of trying. Listeners work hard at empathetic listening. But the way our brains are organized make it difficult to hear others without bias. Here’s what our brains do when someone speaks:

– Words enter our ears as mere vibrations (puffs of air with no meaning),

– get turned into electro-chemical signals (also without meaning) that

– get sent to existing circuits

– previously used for other translations,

– that then discards whatever signals don’t match

– and using what’s left as the basis for translating the new incoming content

– that we mistakenly believe was what the Speaker said.

It’s mechanical. As a result, we not only mishear what was intended, but – because the new content is translated by historic circuits – we unwittingly maintain our biases, not to mention our ability to expand our knowledge base is restricted.

With the best will in the world, with the best empathetic listening, by being as non-judgmental as we know how to be, as careful to show up with undivided attention, we can only hear what Others say according to what our brain allows us to hear.

IT’S POSSIBLE TO GET IT ‘RIGHTER’

We can’t easily change the process itself , but it’spossible to interfere a bit and add new circuits with the brain change models I’ve developed.

Sample

I’ve come up with two ways to listen with more accuracy:

When listening to someone speak, stand up and walk around, or lean far back in a chair. It’s a physiologic fix, offering an Observer/witness viewpoint that goes ‘beyond the brain’ and disconnects from normal brain circuitry. I get permission to do this even while I’m consulting at Board meetings with Fortune 100 companies. When I ask, “Do you mind if I walk around while listening so I can hear more accurately?” I’ve never been told no. They are happy to let me pace, and sometimes even do it themselves once they see me do it. I’m not sure why this works or how. But it does.
To make sure you take away an accurate message of what’s said say this:

To make sure I understood what you said accurately, I’m going to tell you what I think you said. Can you please tell me what I misunderstood or missed? I don’t mind getting it wrong, but I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

Listening is a fundamental communication tool. It enables us to connect, collaborate, care, and relate with everyone. By going beyond Active Listening, by adding Brain Listening to empathetic listening, we can now make sure what we hear is actually what was intended. To train your team on how to listen without bias, please contact me for a one-day zoom course. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

______________________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen November 4th, 2024

Posted In: News

As an inventor of systemic decision-making models, I’ve worked with well-meaning leaders, coaches, sellers, and managers who frequently end up with inadequate decisions and difficult implementations.

Too often incomplete information is collected, causing time delays, resistance, or unsatisfactory results. Sometimes faulty assumptions end up misrepresenting important data sets. And far too often, standard decision-making processes consider and weigh options too early in the process.

I’d like to share with you what I think are the initial stages of decision making that often get ignored. By managing these steps it’s possible to achieve successful, timely, accurate outcomes that evade resistance and are maintained over time.

STEPS OF DECISION MAKING

Stage One: Assemble or represent (in large organizations, it could be a representative of a group) those involved with the initiating problem as well as those who will ‘touch’ the ultimate solution. Excluding any of these means

the originating problem cannot be fully defined;
ownership, creativity, consensus, and a full set of solution ideas won’t be obtained;
resistance and failure are possibilities;
risks won’t be recognized and addressed in a timely way;
human issues – trust, fear, ego slights – won’t be noticed until too late;
data gathering, research, weighing, and choice will be limited or unreliable;
time delays and inefficiencies become probabilities;
it’s difficult to make an accurate, long term decision that gets maintained.

Rule: A complete data set is needed to define a problem and goal. To do so requires the full representation of people, and an understanding of the systems, involved with the current problem and the final solution.

Stage One concludes with a complete, accurate, stated goal that’s been agreed-upon by all who will use the final output.

Stage Two: The system that underlies the problem/solution must be managed. Questions to be answered:

Are there existing solutions that can be tried before anything new is considered?
What has prevented the problem from being resolved until now (current systems, politics, rules, relationships, money, technology)?
What must be managed to set the stage to do something different and ensure buy-in, ownership, creativity, idea generation, and transparency?
Are the full set of the risks of change understood and agreed to beforehand?
What must be managed to remove any obstructions?
Is the system set up for change? What systems must be in place for the new solution to be created and maintained optimally?

Rule: Because outputs are restricted by the input, before the formal decision making process commences, it’s necessary to manage whatever has kept the problem from being resolved and new systems must be in place to house the new solution.

Stage Two concludes with an understanding of, and plans to resolve, the systems that have maintained the problem with new systems and rules in place to generate and maintain the new solution.

Stage Three: Standard decision-making models and processes take over, including research for solutions assigned, weighing of choices, plans for implementation, etc.

SKILLS FOR STEPS

To accomplish these early-stage decision making steps, you’ll need these skills:

Self/Observer/Choice. The ability to move between Self (our natural, unconscious, automatic, restricted, biased state) and Observer (our on-the-ceiling, dispassionate, rational, conscious viewing of a broad set of possibilities).
Rules of trust agreed upon in group.
Willingness to give up early biases.
Facilitative Questions™ to ensure data gathered is unbiased.
Listening without bias. Natural listening involves distortions, deletions, and biases from our brain causing listeners to hear and interpret incoming data uniquely. Extra steps must be taken to verify accuracy.

Sample

Too many decision-making processes forget these early steps and end up with flawed data and difficult goal setting, decision weighing, and implementation, not to mention the probability of resistance and struggle maintaining over time. If you would like help ensuring these early steps get done completely, I’d love to coach you and your team through the process. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

___________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen October 7th, 2024

Posted In: News

I’ve trained many coaches, all of them passionate about serving their clients and helping them be their best selves. And yet sometimes they miss the mark. It’s their brain’s fault. Let me explain.

A client seeks a coach when they seek change, often after trying to make the change themselves. One of the main skills coaches use is listening to best identify the problem. But sometimes, through no fault of their own, coaches don’t accurately hear what their clients tell them.

EARS DON’T HEAR WHAT’S SAID

The problem is that our ears don’t actually hear words. To make it worse, words don’t get translated according to the Speaker’s meaning but according to the Listener’s existing neural circuits. In other words, sometimes neither the coach nor the client hear exactly what’s been said.

The problem occurs in our unconscious listening filters. As I write in my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? the problem lies in our brains.

Sample

Here’s what happens. Words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations. After these are filtered (and some discarded!), our brain then sends them on to become signals that eventually get dispatched to a ‘similar enough’ (the term used in neuroscience) circuits that have translated similar signals before. And – this part is the most disturbing – where the signals don’t match up, our brains kindly discard the differences!

In other words, incoming thoughts and meanings get translated in our brains according to our current biases and knowledge, often missing the real intent, nuance, patterns, and comprehensive contextual framework and implications.

Sample

When we think we’re listening carefully, we naturally assume we’ve accurately heard what clients want to tell us. But given how unreliably our brain translates incoming words, there’s a good chance we won’t fully understand.

Bias. By listening specifically for details, motivation, or story line, a coach’s brain will merely hear what it has a history of hearing. This causes a problem for a client. If:

there are unspoken or omitted bits,
there are meta patterns that should be noticed,
there are unstated historic – or subconscious – reasons behind the current situation that aren’t obvious,

the coach may believe something different was meant and might make the wrong assumptions, potentially offering inappropriate suggestions or comments.

Assumptions. If a coach has had somewhat similar discussions with other clients, or historic, unconscious, beliefs are touched that bring to mind questions or solutions they’ve used with others, coaches might offer clients flawed or inadequate suggestions.

Habits. If a coach has a client base in one area – say, real estate, or leadership – s/he may unconsciously enter the conversation with automatic habits from handling similar situations and miss the unique issues, patterns, and unspoken foundation that may hold the key to success.

WAYS TO HEAR MORE ACCURATELY

Disassociate

One way to avoid unwittingly misunderstanding or mishearing is to disassociate – go up on the ceiling and look down. This goes a long way to minimizing our personal biases, assumptions, triggers or habits, enabling us to hear what’s meant (spoken or not).

For those unfamiliar with disassociation, try this: during a phone chat, put your legs up on the desk and push your body back against the chair, or stand up. For in-person discussions, stand up and/or walk around. [I have walked around rooms during Board meetings while consulting for Fortune 100 companies. They wanted excellence regardless of my physical comportment.] Both of those physical perspectives offer the physiology of choice and the ability to move outside of our instincts. Try it.

For those wanting more information on disassociation, I explain in What? how to trigger ourselves to new choices the moment there is a potential incongruence.

Phrase to use

Given the possibility that you may not be ‘hearing’ accurately, the best way I know to get it right is to say this:

“In case there is a chance I didn’t accurately understand what you’re saying, I’m going to tell you what I heard. Please correct me where I’m wrong.”

That way you both end up on the same page. And to help you enter calls with fewer assumptions.

For those times it’s important for you to hear accurately, here are some questions for you to consider:

What would you need to believe differently to assume every speaker, every call, is a mystery you’re entering into? One you’ve never experienced before? To start each call with Beginner’s Mind?
What can you do to trigger yourself beyond your natural assumptions, and use them to pose a follow up question to yourself: What am I missing here?
What will you hear from your client to let you know that you’ve made an assumption that may not be accurate?
How can you stay on track during a call to make sure you’ve helped them discover their own unconscious drivers and aren’t biased by previous calls?

It’s possible to help your brain go beyond its natural, automatic translation processes. I can help you do this one-day program on listening if you’re interested. Or read W hat?. The most important take-away is to recognize your brain’s unconscious activity, and learn how to override it.

_____________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen September 23rd, 2024

Posted In: Listening, News

I used to live in Taos, New Mexico, where I bought everything I ate from a small grocery called Cid’s Market. Run by Cid and Betty Backer, they always offered fresh organic produce, freshly cooked healthy meals, and a health/vitamin section that had everything I wanted. The store environment was happy and very obviously committed to the Taos community. It felt like MY STORE each time I went in. Any question I had was answered; anything I needed was procured, even if it meant they went out and bought me the item at a different store! I was a rabid fan.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who loved them. In the 11 years I lived there (1989-2000) I watched as they grew from a small store to a three story building taking up half a city block. Their service to customers was exceptional. Every morning as the store opened, Cid held a brief meeting with the entire team. “Who pays your salary?” he’d ask. They’d respond “The Customer!” And then they’d start their day.

Everyone’s job was to take care of customers, whatever that entailed. They didn’t need to ‘follow the rules’: that WAS the rule. And creativity and service ensued: In the health department, the manager created free evening community programs for different groups – diabetes sufferers, parents with kids who wouldn’t eat veggies; the produce manager created free cooking classes and lessons on growing organic veggies. Everyone was trusted to make their best decisions and the customers felt their commitment and respect. And in 1993 that was unusual.

One year, on a plane to Mexico to give a keynote address about Servant Leadership, I noticed Cid and Betty.

“Are you going on vacation?” I asked?

“No. We’re going to a conference on Servant Leadership.”

“Oh. I didn’t think a grocery store would seek out that sort of thing.”

“We’re going mostly to learn what we need to learn to serve our employees. If we can’t give them the respect they deserve, and create an environment in which they thrive, we can’t run a business that will also serve our customers. We go to one conference a year to learn all the tools we can so we all have the best knowledge available to serve with.”

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They understood that their success came from serving people, community, customers and staff. And they actively made it a priority.

WHAT ARE OUR JOBS?

When corporations consider what their jobs are, they sometimes think Profits, or Products, or Shareholders. But I think it’s something else. Think about it: there’s no job that doesn’t include serving:

Sell more? Serve customers.
Grow the business, be respected in the industry, and retain clients? Serve the company.
Retain and inspire good people with tools to inspire creativity? Serve employees.
Maintain optimal skills and health? Serve ourselves.
Maintain communication skills? Serve each other.

Without hiring and retaining good people that know how to lead collaboratively; without the skills to help managers, sales folks, team leaders, facilitate buy-in; without the creativity from an entire group that, working together, can develop top notch solutions that produce competitive and imaginative solutions; none of us are in business. No matter what our jobs, our core business is to serve.

Unfortunately, too many of us unwittingly follow trends that take us away from our core business of serving. For example, too many companies have chosen the trend of using their websites to collect names. They embed pop ups to retrieve email addresses, making it impossible to find answers to questions and rendering the site unusable (unless you agree to the cookies) and annoying folks with real interest who might even be customers.

Obviously they’re putting their own goals before those of a possible customer. Why would a company do that? Especially the smaller companies who truly depend on offering information as a sales strategy. Is acquiring my name to push out marketing materials that important? Don’t they know I’ll leave the site rather than agree to accept more spam? That they’ll lose my business because I don’t want my name captured? Those companies have lost their way: they are only serving themselves.

OUR JOBS ARE TO SERVE

What if our real jobs weren’t only to collect data, or create content, or push products? What if our jobs were merely to serve? That requires a new skill set, a different viewpoint that produces very different results:

Leaders wouldn’t be getting resistance because they’d attain buy-in and work collaboratively to engage all voices before making change.
Sellers would only pitch to those ready to buy, and use the bulk of their now-wasted time to facilitate people them through their buying decision path as they figured out how to achieve their own type of excellence (and possibly buy solutions).
Managers would hire people whose goal was to serve and retain them because the company’s practices facilitated their excellence.
Coaches would use Facilitative Questions to guide folks to their own answers, trusting each person had their own type of excellence to achieve without the biases of an outsider.
Tech folks would save a great deal of time on projects because they’d be curious without bias, gathering the most accurate data the first time and avoiding biased assumptions that caused flawed results and user complaints.
Companies would be aware of the environment, the role they play in it, and factor in climate issues as a way to serve the planet while serving customers.
Senior Management would dictate that each employee, as well as customers, be cared for respectfully. When an employee isn’t happy, it’s difficult for them to care about customers.

By maintaining focus on ourselves, on our individual needs, we miss the larger picture. By using our jobs and companies as the vehicle to serve others and the planet, we will all live in an excellent world.

__________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen September 16th, 2024

Posted In: News

How do original thinkers, folks with exceptional, trademarked IP, handle plagiarism and misrepresentation? How can we ensure our work gets in the world without it being misdefined, misused, or pirated? And what do we do when the misrepresentation and pirating harms others?

In the age of artificial intelligence, many of us are at risk of losing our cutting-edge ideas to the melting pot of mediocrity. How we handle it is an open question.

MY IP HAS BEEN MISAPPROPRIATED

I’ve recently gotten several calls from clients of Jeff Molander at Spark Selling Academy divulging his misuse and plagiarism of one of my inventions, Facilitative Questions™ (FQs), and sending me copies of the articles, videos, guides, and courses that directly lift my words from my books and articles with no attribution. Worse, the material is presented out of context, with inaccurate use and definition.

Without proper training or licensing, without understanding the material and with no attribution, with the actual paperwork in hand from his clients, I see that Molander is training and coaching my FQs out of context as manipulation devices, wholly outside their intended use.

Molander and I have history. Years ago, I discovered the first of Molander’s articles titled ‘Facilitative Questions’. It contained content taken directly from my books and articles without attribution, and wholly misrepresented my work. He took it down.

But the problem continued: each time I discovered his articles misrepresenting my work I offered to train and license him so he’d learn/understand/use the material accurately. Each time he refused but agreed to take the faulty content down. I kept believing him. I shouldn’t have.

I now have actual proof that Molander continues to pirate exact words directly from my writings but with the wrong explanations and intent, and gets paid to teach it. To sum it up, Molander is using FQs as the “foundational” skill offered at the Academy in his videos, coaching, user materials, and workshops

without attribution,
without training or licensing,
without using them accurately or as intended.

Sadly, folks studying with Molander are learning distorted fragments of FQs as manipulation tools (he uses them to provoke curiosity) instead of the Servant Leader, ethical tools, that lead folks efficiently through their values-based, unbiased decision making (in this case, buying decisions).

His misinterpretation of my work not only harms his clients but also harms my brand that I’ve worked hard to build and sustain for 40 years. And the only ethical solution I can think of is to find the folks he’s trained so I can offer them free, accurate training.

WHO AM I?

I should probably tell you who I am. I’m an original thinker and inventor of systemic brain change models, that enable folks to get to the relevant neural circuits for change and decision making. One of my inventions is Buying Facilitation®, a model that finds and leads would-be prospects through the Pre-Sales, change management steps they must take on route to self-identifying as buyers.

To say it simply, in the area of sales, I help people figure out the decisions they need to make in their unique situations before they can buy anything – a front-end to sales.

Some of you may know me from my New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity. But how I got here was circuitous.

In 1983, after years of being a successful sales person, I started up a tech company where I was hit upside the head with the problem I’d had with prospects not buying: as an entrepreneur, before the team could consider buying anything, we first tried to fix our problems ourselves. If we couldn’t, we then needed to understand our risk of change. Before deciding to buy anything we had to know for sure that the risk of bringing in something new was not greater than the risk of staying the same.

So different from the sales model that only addresses assumed needs and a seller’s solution placement issues, not the internal decision issues folks had to discern before making a buying decision. Sales actually starts at the end of the buying decision path.

When I realized this I began my decades-long focus (inventing tools, writing books/articles, doing global training) on developing ethical tools to facilitate buying decisions as an adjunct to selling.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

Knowing my own questions to prospects had bias, and now realizing that prospects lived in unique environments that required buy-in and risk management before buying, I wondered if there was a way to help prospects efficiently figure out the decision path they had to traverse before they could buy.

Enter Facilitative Questions™. Different from standard questions, they use a new form of listening, specific words in specific sequences, and traverse a stepped pathway to personal decision-making, helping prospects and first contacts quickly figure out their Pre-Sales decision issues that then lead to them buying.

Facilitative Questions™

To learn Facilitative Questions™

Not just for sales, FQs are extremely effective at enabling very quick values-based decisions – great for docs to help patients change habits, for sellers to help prospects take action, and for coaches to help clients make permanent change. They require days of training and months of practice. In the wrong hands, with the wrong intent, FQs become highly effective manipulation tools.

BEYOND PLAGIARISM

Unfortunately, over the years, several folks have plagiarized FQs from my books and articles. They all removed the offending materials eventually. But Molander plans to continue, saying that because he allegedly shared an online course with a buddy and read some of my books, because my work is in the public domain, he’s entitled to it.

Worse, the materials I have from Spark reveal he’s taken it beyond plagiarism: he’s also defining FQs inaccurately and twisting their use to manipulate selling – the precise opposite of the reason I spent 10 years inventing them. Certainly they’re not being used to facilitate the precise steps of off-line risk management and decision making.

It’s currently unclear if Molander will ever stop without going to court. But in the meantime, I want to find folks who have been misled and train them properly. My email: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Managing plagiarism and misuse is a problem we all face these days and as yet there are no standards to follow. I’d love to start a dialogue with other original thinkers having similar issues.

____________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen September 9th, 2024

Posted In: News

From Facebook Aug. 2024

For those of you who watched any of the Olympics, you might have seen Snoop Dogg swimming with Michael Phelps (“Will someone please get me some oxygen!”), or holding the Olympic Torch, or trying to throw a javelin. Snoop Dogg, you see, was the NBC Goodwill Ambassador to the Games. What fun he seemed to be having! What fun to watch Snoop in his authentic merriment.

He said, “I had fun just being Snoop Dogg. That’s what I know how to do best. I got paid [$499,000 per day] for being me.”

Hmmmm. That caused me to wonder how many of us only seek out jobs that pay us for being who we are, for being treated with kindness and respect, and jobs that help us enrich our creativity.

Thankfully there were decades when teaching my own inventions (Buying Facilitation®, Facilitative Questions™, the HOW of change) that I earned money for being me, times I lived anxiety-free, filled with the joy of sharing all that I am, being highly creative, and being respected for my input and ideas. In fact, the more I represented the real ‘me’, the more money I made.

Sample

But in much of my earlier life I got paid for being someone others needed me to be, or what was expected of me; times I gave up my values to earn money because I needed to feed a family. Whenever I did so I felt dirty and disrespected myself. I certainly wasn’t being creative, or the inventor of brain-change models that I morphed into when being my best self.

MY CLIENT CURED ME

My breakthrough came when I agreed to train groups in Sydney and Paris for a large sum of money. Didn’t take me long to realize how demanding and disrespectful my client Jim was. Often I would get off the phone and scream from anger and hurt. Afraid to rock the boat too much, I managed to occasionally say “You know, Jim, sometimes when you say things like that it hurts me.” Sorry, he’d say. And do it again the next week. I hated us both.

It came to a head on a conference call with one of his vendors, something I did not want to do because these folks used a mainstream sales model and would resent being asked to change. “Please,” he said. “As a favor to me. I want them to learn Buying Facilitation® with the rest of us so we’re all using the same tools.”

I went into the call with the best intentions. It didn’t take long before they realized I was offering something different from what they were doing and became mean and confrontational. I kept making light of it, telling them I heard them, and yes, it was different. But this only upped their disrespect. Jim watched as they attacked me and said nothing. Personally, I would never have continued a call like this, but I stayed on because it was a high-income job, and I’d promised. And I kept expecting him to intervene.

Eventually I began crying. Jim said nothing, then said he had to go, leaving me on Zoom with these abusers. Shortly after he left the call I told them I felt disrespected and had to get off. I immediately emailed Jim to call me, telling him I was hurt and angry. “You’ll get over it,” he replied. He never called.

And then I knew: my well-being, my self-respect, my values and identity, were worth more than the big bucks he was paying me. I quit the job with him, and never again worked for anyone who disrespected me. I didn’t get a new client for a while, but I used that time to write a new book – something that gave me joy, that I wouldn’t have had time to do while working for Jim; something I wouldn’t have had the clarity to create while not being my best self.

WHAT IS OUR BOTTOM LINE?

The question for us all is how long we put something else – money, ego, social status – above our own self-respect. When I did work for KPMG years ago, the partners would often work through the night. When colleagues came in the next morning they’d say: “You must have worked all night. You’re wearing the same clothes.” And the groggy guy would proudly say, “Yup!” It was a status thing. They all did it. And almost every one of them was on their second marriage at least, half of them on their third.

I can’t tell you how many folks I’ve trained who secretly share how unhappy they are in their jobs. I did a survey for a large pharmaceutical company recently to find out why they had high numbers of resignations. I interviewed 30 middle managers; many of whom cried during the interview:

“I used to bring them well-conceived and presented ideas and innovative solutions to fix some of the problems. I was given 5 minutes and a Thank You! I did this 3 times before I realized they did nothing with my ideas. I stopped caring. I now come in exactly on time instead of early like I used to, and leave exactly on time, not stay late when I should. If they weren’t paying me so much more than the rest of the industry pays, I would have left long ago. I’m miserable, and certainly not giving them my best self because they don’t want it. I’m happy to say I’m getting good results while job hunting now. I won’t earn as much money, but I’ll have my self-respect.”

I wrote this up in my report to them and offered my own personal viewpoints on steps they could take to address this. Last I heard, they had done nothing with the ideas in the report. The employees continue to quit.

Certainly sometimes it’s imperative to work in bad situations, like those nasty jobs I took while working my way through college, or when I needed money and worked two low-paying jobs to feed my young family.

But I deeply believe, when possible, we must take jobs that maintain our self-respect or we lose the only thing we have: ourselves. (Frankly, I find it appalling that employers don’t respect their employees, don’t cherish their ideas or maintain safe learning environments.)

So Snoop Dogg is my hero. He gets paid for being who he is. May we all do the same.

_________________________________

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

Sharon Drew Morgen August 12th, 2024

Posted In: News

Gwendolyn by Sharon-Drew Morgen

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 8th, 2024

Posted In: News

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

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

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

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

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

TEST THE INTENT OF YOUR QUESTION

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

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

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

When you pose a Why? question, are you aware

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANOTHER FORM OF QUESTION

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

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

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

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS TO REPLACE ‘WHY?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 1st, 2024

Posted In: Communication, News

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Change Facilitation™, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Why Women Make Great Leaders, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Why We Misunderstand Each Other: brains don’t listen very well, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Overlooked Steps in Decision Making: how to avoid resistance and encourage buy-in, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

What Should Coaches Be Listening For?

What If Our Jobs Were To Serve?

Beyond Plagiarism, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Snoop Dogg is My Hero, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

My friend Gwendolyn

Why? May Be the Wrong Question