The sales process discovers need, gathers data to determine a solution fit, and places the solution. Buyers need that data and the sales function is vital. But first they absolutely must make sure that a new solution fits comfortably, and causes no major disruption on a human or a strategic level.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES, BACK-END, OFF-LINE

The modern sales model came into full flower (although it’s been around since the Serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple) in 1937 with Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.  At that time, gathering needs and discussing solution was simple: there were very few competitive solutions, and very little capability for buyers to get the information they needed.

Times have changed, but the sales model hasn’t changed its goals and thrust toward solution placement, even as astonishing technology is available to help.

The buyer’s entire behind-the-scenes pre-purchase buy-in process remains unaddressed and these back-end issues are far more confounding now than they were in 1937. And nothing about the sales model – even when marketing automation and sales enablement is applied – addresses these off-line issues.

Unfortunately, sales treats a ‘need’ as if it were an isolated event, and separate from the day-to-day activities and rules inherent in the buyer’s environment. But until everyone (EVERYONE) is on board with the level and specifics of the change that would be required if they were to make a purchase, buyers can’t buy (see my latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it): the disruption to their system would be well beyond the positives of solving one of their problems.

It’s estimated that 80% of buyers will purchase a solution (yours or your competitor’s) at some point within 2 years of their first contact with a sales professional. That leaves behind a trail of dead sales people – most of whom probably had a great solution, but were either too early in the buyer’s decision cycle, or their Buying Decision Team just didn’t know how to adopt the change a new solution would bring.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Why is the personal, political, human side of the buying journey ignored during a seller’s outreach? Why is it assumed that the seller ‘knows’ what the buyer needs, or ‘knows’ what’s going on behind the scenes, and assumes that that ‘knowing’ is sufficient to sell a solution?

Why do sellers prefer to wait for buyers to ‘show up’ after they’ve traversed their perilous back-end, political journey rather than adding a new skill set to help them manage the change and buy-in issues (and close sales in 1/8 the time)?

Why is the focus on making an appointment, assuming that once the buyer sees your bright, shiny (and professional, naturally) face the buyer will just ignore the policy problems, and internal politics, they need to manage before they buy? Sales people lose over 90% of their prospects by focusing on an appointment, when it’s so simple to help buyers recognize their buying steps on the first call. And when they invite you to meet, they will have the entire Buying Decision Team.

What needs to happen for sellers to recognize that a buying journey is far, far more complex than fixing a need? Or that the need is sitting and waiting for the seller to show up? Or that the need is just sitting on a shelf, by itself, and can be plucked out and fixed and then put back where it was with no ramifications to the rest of the buyer’s system?

Why is it so difficult for sellers to want to add a capability to support the 90%+ of what buyers are doing off-line, without them, and prefer instead to contain their skills to solution focus and lose a very high percentage of prospective sales?

What would you need to know or believe differently in order to add a decision facilitation skill – Buying Facilitation Method® – to your current sales skills to help buyers achieve this buy in?

Buyers need to resolve a (business) problem – they don’t necessarily need your solution. But until or unless they manage their own off-line, back-end change management issues, they cannot buy.

Your job should be to help them manage the buying journey – and THEN you can sell.

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There are many ways to learn Buying Facilitation®:

• 3-Day Public Training in Austin in early June (contact Sharon Drew to discuss)
• Buying Facilitation® corporate training
• Guided Study program for individuals or teams
• Learning Accelerators

Sharon Drew is a featured speaker at the Search Insider Summit – May 4 – 7 , 2011

Buyers don’t sit and wait for sellers is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

In other words, when choices are made that go against what the world deems rational,  they are, by definition, irrational. So if we get accepted to Harvard, for example, and choose to go to Podunk, we are being irrational.

HOW WE DECIDE

As a person who thinks in systems (I have Asperger’s), I’m here to tell you that decisions do not get made based on information but on beliefs – personal, idiosyncratic values that we each uniquely hold dear: what may seem rational to one person is not rational to another. And  it’s all subjective regardless of what end you sit on.

If you have good data that the new software you’re being asked to use will be superior to what you’ve been using, the rational decision would be to accept/adopt the material. Yet you have a fear that when using the new technology your job will change, you won’t be competent at your job, you’ll suffer some diminished deference from your colleagues, and you won’t be able to ever get as competent as you are now with the existing software. Those internal voices – the fears and the resistances, the avoidance and the confusion – are what determine your decision, not the ‘rationality’ of the potential solution.

Your ability and willingness to change – to buy, to learn, to choose – is directly proportional to your skills at examining and shifting our criteria. You weight/re-weight your beliefs regularly. So if I asked you if you wanted to learn to kill someone, you’d probably say ‘no.’ But if you knew that someone were going to come into your home to harm your family members, you might re-weight your beliefs about knowing how to kill.

When you assume you understand what a ‘rational’ decision should be, and notice someone making what you deem an irrational decision, you have no ability (as an outsider) to understand what might be appropriate for that person, at that moment, living as they are living, with the people, policies, relationships, emotions, and history of their lives.

SALES TREATS NEEDS AS IF ISOLATED EVENTS

When there are others including in decision making – a team, for example - the range of decision criteria gets complex. And buyer’s decision paths are no different from any other decision path: the time it takes the person or team to recognize and manage the full extent of their decision criteria, and come up with a way to enable the appropriate buy-in from the appropriate people at the right time, is the length of the buy/decision cycle.

The first phase that buyers address as they start their buying decision journey involves lining up their internal criteria, the players, the old vendors, and understand relevant systems issues that have maintained their status quo.

The need we can resolve with our solution  actually sits in a tangled web of gooey systems issues that not only created their problem, but maintain it every day, and until or unless there is appropriate buy-in for systemic change, the problem will remain as it is: the need is thrown under the bus if a solution will severely disrupt the system.

In fact, buyers buy solutions with personal criteria that usually has nothing to do with a need or a solution. People buy homes with personal criteria that usually has nothing to do with the details of any specific house; software often gets purchased only when the tech team is willing to work with the marketing team – none of which is directly related to a specific solution.

So what’s rational?

There is an assumption that with the right data, at the right time, offered in the right way, to address the right solution, the person receiving the data will accept it. But that doesn’t happen as often as we would like. As a result, we often judge the person ”stupid” or irrational. But what is happening is not information-based.

As you move toward making new decisions, or helping buyers manage their buy-in cycle, start off with helping them manage their decision criteria, rather than beginning with the last thing they do (choose the solution). Buying Facilitation® is a decision facilitation model that actually teaches buyers how to walk through and reweight their decision criteria. Help them discover their own ‘rationality’ so they can buy. They must do this anyway – with you or without you: it might as well be with you.

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My newest book: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it is about how decisions get made. While seemingly about the buying decision path the book is usable for any people involved in decision making  and it breaks down the root all decisions take. Read two sample chapters free.

Listen to  Sharon Drew’s podcast series called Making Change Work.

Buying Facilitation® licensing program: July 1-7, Austin TX.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Behaviors aren’t rational is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I originally labelled the trip through the behind-the-scenes issues buyers must contend with (those political, relational, strategic issues that will be touched when a new solution enters) ‘navigating the buyer’s decision.’

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SELLING AND MANAGING OFF-LINE BUYING DECISION ISSUES

Historically, sellers have mistakenly assumed I focus on decisions related to the purchase and the need. In fact, folks have had a real hard time understanding my intent: some sellers, regardless of illustrations, or webinars, books or speeches, assume I mean what every sales person must do: help buyers

1. figure out how to purchase the right solution for their need,
2. get the funding to pay for it,
3. understand all of the choices that would be a plausible solution,
4. choose the right vendor.

Smart, savvy business folks and entrepreneurs still believe that’s my message or have just defined the term to fit their comfortable level. Regardless of what others say, it’s important for me that it’s understood that my work is not meant for the solution-placement end of the buying journey, but for the non-needs-related set of activities buyers must handle amongst themselves to

1. find the right set of people for the Buying Decision team as they begin consideration to make a change,
2. make sure that every department, job function, existing solution, and political relationship that will touch a new solution gets managed appropriately to ensure minimal disruption to the status quo,
3. get the appropriate buy-in so folks work together to design a way for the new solution to fit.

It’s the stuff buyers must do before they buy. They do this without us. And we sit and wait, because sales doesn’t handle this portion of the buyer’s journey.

BUYING FACILITATION® AND SALES TOGETHER

Just to clarify: sales manages the needs assessment and solution placement end of the buyer’s journey – the last 10% of their activity. Because

• if the tech guy doesn’t want the new solution and won’t free up people without a fight,
• if the user group doesn’t want to take training,
• if the company is going through an M&A,
• if the regular vendor can handle a portion of the need,
• if the tech person and the marketing person are having a turf war,
• if anything that affects the status quo cannot make the necessary internal changes to handle a new solution,

the buyer will take no action, regardless of their need.

And that’s why 7% of your prospects buy now, and 80% of your prospects will buy within 2 years, and from someone else: the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle.

With my Asperger’s systems-thinking brain, I’ve actually coded the change management issues buyers must handle before buying: Buying Facilitation® is based on how systems work (and sales treats a ‘need’ as if it were an isolated event – it’s not), and how to maintain homeostasis as the system faces change. It teaches sellers how to put on the hat of a change agent and help buyers navigate through all of their idiosyncratic and people/policy issues. It  includes using Facilitative Questions, Systems Listening, and Decision Sequencing, all designed to lead buyers through their internal issues to make the right decisions that will leave their system intact and better than when it started.

It’s not sales. But it collapses the decision cycle and helps folks come up with their unique criteria for buy-in so they’ll take action. It’s great for coaching, negotiating, leadership, and personnel issues.  All marketing automation technology should add Buying Facilitation® to their contact sheets, and to their telemarketing scripts and lead scoring.

FACILITATING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

Finally, around 8 years ago, I coined the term Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey, thinking that I finally ‘got it’.

Except the term is so terrific that it’s been co-0pted by the sales field which  is REdefining it to  fit into ‘sales’ and solution choice.

Now I’ve got a quandry: if the term ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ gets co-opted into the conventional sales thinking, we all run the risk of losing the intent, the model, the brand, the powerful methodology that actuallys help the buyer manage change. If I start writing a lot about MY definition, I run the risk of being a johnny-one-note.

Of course, this is journey of all new ideas: the originator finally learns how to say it, and then it gets stolen and co-opted by the mainstream. And the originator dies with one ear, in poverty. And the original idea get subsumed. We don’t see many geodesic domes; thankfully impressionism was picked up by others besides Van Goch.

My biggest fear is that we’ll lose the original intent and fail to learn a new skill set.

So I’ll leave the choice up to you: would you rather sell? Or have someone buy. Because if you’d rather sell, you can shove ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ into sales, and probably not notice there is a far, far more successful way to help buyers buy. If you’d rather have someone buy….. have I got a term for you! :)

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Come to my loft in Austin and learn Buying Facilitation® with me or send a trainer to learn to train your folks. Buying Facilitation® licensing program that includes Facilitating Buying Decisions: July 2-8, Austin TX.

Webinar with Method Frameworks June 15th:
Buy-in: A Radical Approach To Change Management

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey: a definition is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

But what, exactly, can you be in control of? You are in control of the details about your solution, and how it’s used in a particular setting, and the data you seek from prospects. You certainly have control over how you enter, and maintain, the relationship. But that is the sum total of what you’re in control of.

Obviously it’s easy to spot a need that matches your solution. But the number of buyers who buy is much, much lower than those you’re following, or those who really have a need that your solution will support.

In fact, most of your time is spent selling to folks who won’t buy. And then when the phone rings with a closed sale, it’s a surprise: you have no idea which of those to whom you are selling will be buyers. In fact, all your prospects seem like buyers. But they’re not. And you don’t know the difference until – well, until they don’t buy.

So it’s obviously not a direct match: need does not equal purchase; time selling doesn’t equal a closed sale. And therefore, ultimately, you are out of control of the actual buy.

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

Buyers don’t know what issues they must confront in order to get the appropriate buy-in to make a purchase. There is so much more going on behind the scenes than you can ever be aware of or have control over, and almost none of it is needs-related, thereby leaving you out of control when it comes to when, or how, or why, or if, a prospect will buy.

Until or unless the prospect (or lead) gets the appropriate buy-in to bring in a new solution, they will do nothing. And this buy-in is based on the change management issues the buyer must handle behind-the-scenes:

• if there is not buy-in from everyone who touches the solution, there will be no purchase;
• if there is not a way to meld the new solution with whatever is there now, there will be no purchase;
• if the regular vendor is not in some way ‘managed’, they will not buy;
• if there are turf battles, personality battles, or internal politics involved with trying to resolve a problem, no solution will be purchased.

Because the sales model is solution-placement focused, sellers mistakenly believe that with a need/solution match, there will be a sale. But that’s of course not true 90% of the time. In fact, that belief puts sellers out of control: a buying decision is not made via the sales process. And you should care because you are wasting so much time, and losing so much commission by focusing on the ‘pain’ and the ‘need’ and not focusing first on influencing the complete buying decision path from the beginning. Of course you must sell when it’s the right time; but by that time the buyer has already made the majority of the necessary decisions.

WE CLOSE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT

As long as sellers focus on placing a solution rather than facilitating the decision path that buyers go through as they attempt to bring all of the right people on board and manage change in a way that doesn’t leave behind chaos, you will merely close the low hanging fruit.

If you want real control, facilitate the buying decision path from the beginning: from where they are and an idea for something better, to figuring out what to do with the current situation and workarounds, to what needs to change; from how to use what they are using now to adding something new and fitting the old and new together; from needing a solution to getting the relevant buy-in.

Buying Facilitation® is the model I’ve created to accomplish this: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model (not a selling model) that leads buyers through their entire buying decision journey from the first idea, through to the inclusion of the full Buying Decision Team and getting their buy-in. In conjunction with sales, it truly facilitates the buyer’s decision journey.

If you want real control, lead buyers through their back-end change management issues before you start selling. They have to do this anyway – with you or without you. By helping them navigate, and using the very proscribed model I’ve developed specifically for this purpose, you are fully in control.  I’m not suggesting you stop selling; I’m suggesting you help buyers manage their decision path first.

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Buying Facilitation® licensing program: July 1-7, Austin TX.

Webinar with Method Frameworks June 15th:
Buy-in: A Radical Approach To Change Management

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Sellers can’t control the buyer’s decision journey is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

SELLERS ENTER TOO EARLY

We fail to realize that we are only being brought in when they have all of their internal ducks in a row and are ready to bring in a change.  When buyers are

• considering all options and face confusion and internal politics,
• recognizing a problem and the timing on fixing it,
• doing research into possible vendors or solutions,
• figuring out which problems to resolve in which order,
• understanding how a new solution will create shifts in their culture and technology,
• figuring out who needs to be on the Buying Decision Team, the prospect isn’t ready to buy.

As sellers, we don’t realize that buyers have an incomplete understanding who to invite on the Buying  Decision Team when they begin their process (I write about this in my latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it). The entire buying path is largely unknown up until close to the end of their decision – and until it is, they cannot make a purchase.

In fact, there are so many human issues that rear their ugly heads that a buyer really has no idea at the start who to involve, what the buy-in problems will be, nor what personal, corporate, or market issues will have to be resolved prior to making a purchase. And until they figure this out, they cannot buy, regardless of the efficacy of our solution.

SALES IGNORES THE BACK-END, NON-SOLUTION-RELATED  DECISION PATH

Sales gives us no skills to help with those back end decisions as they are not needs/solution-related. And we sit and wait while buyers figure it out. But Buying Facilitation® does: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model that gives you an additional skill set to lead buyers through their private issues that we’ve always sat and waited for them to complete.

No, it’s not sales, and it’s not solution-placement or needs-assessment — sales does a wonderful job of doing that. But add Buying Facilitation® to your sales skills, and enter the buyer’s decision path early and become a very active partner. You will:

• close 8x more sales;
• halve the close time;
• understand who is not a prospect on the first call;
• only go to meetings when the entire Buying Decision Team is involved (and you’ll help get all of the members included);
• rarely need a proposal, or be in a competitive situation.

Would you rather sell? or have someone buy? They are two different activities. Sales will only help you place your solution. Buying Facilitation® can lead the buyer through their decisions. Call to discuss how to become a part of the buyer’s buying journey.

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• Guided Study program for individuals or teams
• Learning Accelerators
• Buy the MP3′s of Sharon Drew making live phone prospecting and qualifying calls.

3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 14-16 Syllabus | Registration

Make the vendor an active partner from early in the buyer’s decision path is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

My client was a visionary. He knew Buying Facilitation® would differentiate them, and give them higher closing ratios and shorter sales cycles. We were able to enlist the appropriate Buying Decision Team members, get the necessary buy in and create the change management container before we started. But in the end, one of the “C” level people – not ‘directly’ on the Buying Decision Team – was the decider. He was the one who had most to lose by changing.

CSO AS UNCHECKED LEADER

The CSO was quite a despot. Somewhat smart, but certainly ruled the roost in a very mainstream way, and with such seeming passion (turned out to be fear) that folks just did his bidding, regardless of whether he was doing the best thing for the company. And since there was no time for anyone to check, his ideas were just accepted. To the company’s detriment, it turns out.

Constantly in self-imposed motion, this man gave the go-ahead to do my training but never read my book  Dirty Little Secrets to get an understanding of what I’d be teaching and the implications for  the organization.

Turned out that the CSO was quite a negative player. He routinely called people late at night and wielded his power through tantrums and denigration. Folks were afraid of him and did his bidding, never questioining the efficacy of his decisions.

FUNNY NUMBERS THAT EVERYONE BELIEVED

As part of my training, I spend quite a bit of time with sales managers to deeply understand how they sell, and their numbers. But this group didn’t have real numbers. They claimed to close 17% of their sales but I couldn’t figure out where this number came from. Finally I spoke with enough of the sales managers to put together a picture, and it wasn’t pretty.

Actually, their sales process made it difficult for them to succeed. They:

• spent 3 months (and appx 15 calls each, and over 90% of their time) getting 97.5%  ‘no’s’ and 2.5% appointments (that mostly led nowhere) to present product data,
• pushed extremely hard to close, with a huge discount at the end of the quarter, which was industry knowledge so  buyers waited to get the best deal,
• were fired if they didn’t make their numbers.

They counted their close rate  from the time they got their first appointment. Of course, that presupposes that none of the first 97.5% of the leads/names would have purchased, because if any of those could have been buyers, then you start counting from #1, not #97.6. They actually had a .6758% close.

When I told the CSO the real numbers, he had a tantrum. “That can’t be true. Who told you that?! Don’t tell anyone else!!!” Of course not. If the CEO or Chairman of the Board knew the real numbers he’d be fired (and of course he sandbagged the targets to match what he could achieve, thereby diminishing the company’s possible ROI).

I discussed this with my client, who agreed with my results once he saw the real numbers. He was further committed to Buying Facilitation® training as it would bring in 35% close from the first name/lead, with no end-of-month push or price break. We’d easily be able to double business within a year.

PROTECTING FAILURE

One week prior to the training (which the CSO had rescheduled already, two days prior to the original scheduled event), he called late one night and fired me (even though he wasn’t my direct client). “I told you not to tell anyone the numbers.” “I didn’t” I said. “I just called the managers that gave me the numbers to check on their accuracy one more time. And they are accurate.” “But I told you not to talk to anyone. You’re done.”

Then I sent notes with all of the numbers to the CPO, one of the advisory board members, and the CSO’s coach. No one called me back, except their lawyer who wanted to ‘clear up a few loose ends.’ No idea what those were as I never took the calls.

So here are the most confounding thoughts:

1. this man is keeping the company’s ROI down dramatically because everyone is following his lead. The ROI would be SO much higher if they stopped attempting to get appointments (and throwing out the first 97.5% of their prospects) as their first contact;
2. no one knows this man is inflating the numbers by counting from an artificial beginning. Indeed, there were NO numbers to show how many calls were being rejected, how many times a sales person had to call (up to 15) to get an appointment, and how much time was being wasted.
3. the company has a horrific reputation in town for being abusive to their sales people – a truth that the CSO thought was funny: “Yup. I”ve heard that a lot myself. hehehehe.”
4. everyone colluded to maintain the status quo and stand behind this man. No one was willing to stand up to the CEO and offer the truth.
5. a whole system was built around doing sales his way: probably 40% more sales people were hired than were necessary, and they were losing market share and reputation. Buying Facilitation® would have given them a closing rate at least 400% more than the one they were currently experiencing.
6. this man was putting his ego needs above the company’s success.

The entire company’s ROI is a fraction of what it could be. And I was fired for speaking the truth. And the senior people in the company either don’t know, don’t care, or don’t realize they could be so much more successful. They certainly aren’t willing to do anything different because they were ‘meeting their numbers’.

How many times does this sort of thing happen to external consultants? They are the bearers of the Truth, and get let go because the company wants to maintain their secrets – at all costs. And what is the real cost here! To the companies, the consultants, to the people (customers and staff). Is there no way to circumvent these sorts of issues? And what has to be true for a company to prefer to be far less successful and maintain their status quo rather than change and be successful?

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To find out how you can make sure you have the skills/tools to get the highest ROI for your company, read sample chapters from my latest book and then buy it! And then call me (512-457-0246) so we can train your sales folks to close 40% of their lead population.

The Consultant as Whistleblower is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

BUYING DECISIONS ARE BASED ON SYSTEMS AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT

We live in systems (My book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it explains a systems and how change and decisions take place.).

A system is a bunch of things that have agreed to operate together, using rules they all agree to. And systems don’t recognize one thing as ‘bad/needs help’ and one thing ‘good/leave alone.’ It’s all just stuff that keeps recreating itself daily – like our weight, or our relationships, or the way our teams/families function.

When a problem occurs within a system the system quickly creates a work-around so it can continue on it’s normal route. It doesn’t say, “OH. We need to make a purchase and get rid of the thing that’s problematic!’ It just does a fix and keeps going. It’s not until several parts of a system are ready to create a change and manage any resistance, that a change (or purchase) will take place).

One of the problems with the sales model is that it assumes when sellers ’understand need’ and move to introduce a ‘fix’, that the buying journey can be influenced. This is far, far from true (or we’d close a lot more sales). Until the system is ready to change without resistance, it will do nothing.

Here are the major systems issues that must be resolved before a purchase will be made, regardless of the type of size of the solution or the costs of the underlying need.

1. The Buying Decision Team must be formed – an interesting process in an of itself and takes quite a while.
2. The political infighting must be minimized. But oh, what a painful, personal process!
3. The familiar vendor must be checked out.
4. The recommended vendors must be checked out.
5. Everyone who will touch the solution must agree to change. This is a long, hard process.
6. The implementation/change management issues must be in place.
7. The management must be bought-in and know how to manage the change.
8. People have to be hired/fired/outsourced, or calendars scheduled to take care of the appropriate staffing.

Because we are not part of the system that buyers make decisions in – their relationships and their policies are idiosyncratic and not open to outsiders – using the sales model merely  manages the last stage of the buying decision, but offers little to manage the back-end systems piece and decision paths.

A NEED IS NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT CASE STUDY

When sellers notice a problem – and let’s face it: we’re hypervigilant around problems we can solve with our solution - we hone in on it as if it were an isolated event. And try to prove to the system that it’s wrong, and can only be ‘righted’ if it purchases OUR solution.

But that’s lunacy. Many years ago I was working with IBM. They were running Betas on a new system – AS 400 to replace the slower System 36 – and needed one particular small company to take the Beta as it fit the criteria for testing perfectly. They had 3 sales people attempt to offer the company the new hardware for free, and it was declined each time. They asked me to see if I could have better results. Here is how the conversation went:

SDM: Hi. I’m Sharon Drew Morgen with IBM. This is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak?

Owner: Sure. What are you selling?

SDM: Actually, I’m trying to give you a free computer cuz we’re doing a Beta test and want to include you. How is your computer working for you?

Owner: Um. It’s OK. Fine, I guess.

SDM: What’s stopping you from getting a computer that’s better than OK??

Owner: Dad.

SDM: DAD? What does that mean?

Owner: This is a Mom & Pop shop. Dad is the owner. He’s been around over 40 years, and he’s retiring in 2 years. He’s in charge of all technology, and I don’t want him to stress over trying to learn something new that will probably be beyond him.

And there you have it. The problem was not a problem at all, as a very slow computer was worth the systemic issues that held it in place. I must admit that I figured out a way to move ahead, though. But not by discussing the merits of the new computer or focusing on the need. I helped him decide how to take care of Dad.

SDM: I hear that until or unless Dad would be able to learn a new technology easily, and would be able to maintain it comfortably, you’d rather continue with your slow computer. What would you need to see from me to know if we could create a way to help Dad decide if he could handle it?

Owner: Are there any other Beta sites around here that you could take Dad to and he could see for himself?

He did, and it was fine, and they took the Beta.

Stop selling a solution. Until ‘Dad’ is aboard, the rest of the system will fight to maintain the status quo. Focus your efforts on helping the prospect figure out how and when and if and with whom to change and help them manage their decision paths. And then you can sell.

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Read 2 sample chapters of Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it, and Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.

Hear Sharon Drew make live prospecting calls.

How do systems determine buying decisions? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

And the reasons buyers don’t buy is the same reason change is so difficult.

IT’S A SYSTEMS PROBLEM

When we notice a problem we believe we’ve got a solution for, and go barreling forth to get others to adopt it, we’re forgetting that a problem sits within a system. In other words, there are ‘things’ around it holding it in place – people, policies, history, beliefs, feelings, relationships – and it does not exist in a vacuum.

Systems follow the laws of science, in that they maintain homeostasis—balance—at all costs. And no change can happen until the system figures out how to change in a way that maintains the normal equilibrium of the status quo. As a result, resolving a problem, or need, or pain, is a change management issue.

Unfortunately, like the sales model, change management approaches treat an Identified Problem as if it were an isolated event and leave the people in the system to figure out how to handle the policies, relationships, and initiatives that will end up being disrupted if a new solution were to enter. So buyers and employees go about making this shift behind the scenes while we outsiders wait helplessly and have no capability to enter this end of the journey.

Sellers and change managers tend to focus on just the Identified Problem that they are seeking to shift and have no traditional means to manage the surrounding factors that maintain the status quo (the people and policies who will be affected by the new solution).

BUY-IN FIRST

Yet prospects and employees (like anyone considering change) must not only buy in before they alter how they work, but must also figure out how to shift congruently to accommodate the change in a way that won’t cause major disruption.

Ignoring these factors, we continue to push our way in, trying to place a solution, assuming that because there appears to be a need, people will welcome the initiative with open arms…

Where, might I ask, are those needing to adopt the new solutions in all this? I’ll tell you where. They are:

• attempting to understand how the change affects their work, process, and team;
• reacting to the proposed change individually and within their teams;
• figuring out what areas of their company are going to be affected by the solution and therefore be discombobulated;
• deciding what to do with the old systems.

And you’re pushing/nurturing/sending and attempting to ‘understand need’, assuming that with the right data sent at the right time, having the right people help with the implementation, you’ll be able to achieve a successful outcome. But you don’t. You get pushback, objections, and resistance—all of which you are actually creating yourself because you are pushing change from the outside, rather than enabling change from the inside.

Instead of pushing or trying to sell or learning objection-handling techniques, why not help employees and buyers navigate through their internal decision process? And then, only then, can you gather data to understand people’s true needs and offer your solution.

Actually, Buying Facilitation™ offers a new skill set that will help you lead the buyer or client through all of the change issues they must manage to get the buy-in to make the change, or purchase. It’s not about the need – you know how to get to that – or about understanding anything at all: it’s about the journey to buy-in that buyers have to do anyway (usually without us). Think about adding a new skill set to what you’re doing now, and avoid pushback.

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Read: Buying Facilitaition™: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Or listen to Sharon Drew’s audio learning that shows you how to facilitate prospecting, problem solving, change management, and fund raising conversations.

Join Me Next Week Free Webinar, Focus Roundtable: March 22, 4:00 PM ET – Has Selling Become Very Complex?

Why do we get pushback – and can it be avoided? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

To understand and influence the buyer’s buying decision process and all of the people, politics and relationships that buyers must manage internally to be ready to make a purchase, it’s necessary for sellers to learn a new language. Not the language of sales, but the language of decision making, the language of systems, and the language of change management.

The sales model disregards the complex issues – both human and corporate - that buyers must handle behind-the-scenes. It’s the tech guy not wanting to outsource, or the management team not wanting training, or the sales and marketing folks who can’t work together. Human issues regarding change, or ego, or relationships. And sales does not facilitate this.

WHAT IS A BUYING DECISION?

The majority of a buying decision takes place before the consideration of a solution or vendor and includes

• collecting an entire Buying Decision Team that includes all of the people and job functions that will touch the potential solution;
• figuring out how to incorporate all of the appropriate systems/people issues so that when bringing in something new, the status quo will be able to maintain itself;
• reviewing current work-arounds and current/favored vendors to ensure there is no possibility that familiar resources can resolve the problem;
• getting the appropriate buy-in from the appropriate people to ensure there is support for change, no sabotage, and internal creativity/leadership;
• the solution/vendor choice;
• agreements and implementation strategies to ensure success.

Until or unless these things happen, a buyer cannot buy. Regardless of their ‘need.’ This is where buyers go when they disappear. You can help them manage this – but  not with the sales model.

THE BOTTOM FUNNEL – DECISION MAKING and SOLUTION CHOICE

The problem, in terms of lost revenue, lost prospects, overlong sales cycles,  and leads that come in at the top funnel but do not ‘come out’ the bottom, is that sales doesn’t offer the capability to enter the complete decision journey: you don’t enter early enough in their buying process. Not to mention, people do not know what to do with solution  information if they haven’t already opened a place for change and you are wasting their time and yours by presenting solution data too early.

At the ‘top of the funnel‘ you’ve collected names. You don’t know if they are leads, or prospects, or buyers. In some instances, they don’t know either. But when you approach them, not only do you have no idea if your solution is really what they need (you are merely assuming and hoping) and will fit in with their status quo, but they most likely have no idea either.

Sometimes you get lucky and the prospect has done all of the work already. But this is merely 5% of the leads you have – the ones who are easy, who are ready to buy. So you are pushing for appointments, doing presentations and pitches, to 95% of the lead population who needs something more from us: help with the off-line end of the buying process.

There is a way to enter the buyer’s buying process earlier, and help them manage their behind-the-scenes issues. But it’s not called ‘sales’ and it’s not solution/need driven.

Buying Facilitation™ is a very different skill, with a different focus, than sales. It’s a decision facilitation model that works alongside of sales and actually helps buyers navigate through the early part of their internal decision journey, much like a GPS system helps drivers navigate their route.

Your choice is to sit and wait for them to accomplish this, or hope that your pushing, or presentation, or product pitch or price reduction will result in a sale. And entering the buying process on the very first call makes the entire process much quicker and far, far easier.

Only 1-6% of sales are now closing. Obviously something is going on that you are not handling or you’d be closing far more.

Learn a new skill set to add to the sales model, and first help buyers manage their buy-in, change management journey. Differentiate yourself. Enter the buying process at the beginning. Buyers have to do this anyway – with you or without you. Rather than sit and wait for them to do it, be the GPS system for the buying process, and help buyers buy.

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To learn more about the Buying Facilitation Method®, here are some learning tools:

• Learning Accelerators
• Guided Study program
• MP3s of Sharon Drew using Buying Facilitation™

The buyer’s buying process vs. the sales model: two divergent roads is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For the first 10 years I sought partners by making cold calls and using Buying Facilitation™ on whoever answered the phone. I also wrote my first books, Sales on the Line; SOMEBODY makes a difference, and Selling with Integrity.

For 5 of those years I spoke at Spirituality in Business conferences (often paying my own way and getting a suite with books because no one would invite me to speak) to audiences who didn’t believe it was possible to make any money if they were to be spiritual. I was not welcomed.

I managed to get in front of small groups who argued with me (or walked out or cancelled membership in organizations that would hire someone as blasphemous as me), and wrote articles that got hackles up and noses bent. Occassionally people would be excited.

THE VOICE OF SERVANT-LEADERSHIP IN SALES

I knew at some level that my job, my life’s work if you will, was to bring a servant-leader, change management model into sales – a field whose foundation was a greed-filled, manipulative enterprise that had no inkling that it was possible to close a lot more sales by helping buyers manage their internal change, and also to make money by doing good.

It’s been a bit easier lately. For the past 10 years, I have trained many global corporations, consulted to dozens of sales forces, licensed a few folks around the world (none in the US to date, unfortunately), written over 1000 articles and 420 blog posts, and put  ’decision facilitation’  ‘the buying decision process’  ’how buyers buy’  ‘Buying Decision Team’ ‘facilitative questions’  ’buyer’s journey’ and ‘Buying Facilitation™’ into the industry parlance. Not everyone knows that I am the innovator behind these concepts.

Through it all there have been visionary clients, hard-core friends, readers and fans, who have all applauded my efforts and kept me going, even when I lost heart. I keep on my desk a couple of reminders:

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. - Margaret Mead

The mighty oak was once a nut that held it’s ground.

Life shrinks or expands in relation to one’s courage.

There certianly have been times I doubted myself, when I wanted to cave in to mainstream thinking, or get a real job: people have not always been kind, and I must keep reminding myself (daily, sometimes) that I’m a change agent, and that change agents aren’t always loved or accepted (although I have always longed for acceptance); for decades, I fought what felt like the world. I constantly hope that I won’t end up in a coffin with one ear, poverty stricken like Van Gogh.

I LIVE WITH A VISION

But I’ve always had the vision – since I’ve been 11 years old – that I have a piece of what people need to attain Excellence: I’ve known that my job has been to lead the way, to develop material to enable change and to make it possible for us serve each other.

And now, finally, the world is finding me. Thankfully, folks in the change management industry as well as Buying Psych and negotiating folks, marketing folks and customer service folks, systems thinkers and educators. are seeking me out to develop programs and technology. My model is finally becoming recognized as an important addition to sales, change management, and communication. My dream is to have an institute in which I teach parents, and couples, and teachers, and and and … My dream is to develop the skills so everyone can serve each other in making their best decisions.

As the new decade nears, I predict that 10 years from now I won’t be writing a blog. My Buying Facilitation Method® will be taught to all sales people as part of the sales process. It will be taught in business schools that won’t talk to me now, in companies that currently use only solution-focused selling methods, in sales training companies along with consultative selling models. Smarter people than I will move the material forward, just as consultative selling has gone beyond its creator Linda Richardson.

I close the decade with a sense of satisfaction: I’ve taken an idea, developed it, developed it more, made it useful and usable, put it into sales and change management and decision making, customer service and negotiating. I’ve developed technology to help buyers through their decision making, and programs to help sellers through their learning.

I can sit back with the knowledge that I’ve made a difference. And, after the dark years when I wondered if I would ever actually ‘see the light’ aside, I’ve found the sunshine. And I’m happy.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your belief in me, your patience with me, your openness to change and being flexible, and your true care for people and each other. I’m honored to have taken the journey. It was a life worth living.

As I write my final Monday blog for the decade, I wish you all happy holidays. Remember to care for each other and the earth. Remember that if there aren’t any voices that shout the cranky, strange ideas, no change can occur — and find those people and support them as they fight the status quo.

And then imagine that the world we’re building will have people who serve each other. At the end of the day, that’s all there is. Just you, and me. And between us, we can heal the world.

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Sales, decision making, and the new decade is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

So whether a buyer seeks a new solution and must get buy-in from the relevant people, or a user needs to use the new software, or an initiative needs agreement from the relevant team members to move forward, or a person may want to donate to one charity rather than another, new decisions are necessary or change won’t happen.

What, exactly, is a decision? In Dirty Little Secrets, I define a decision as: “…a series of conscious and unconscious choices that result in change that maintains the integrity of the whole. In other words, decisions must be congruent with the rules and agreement of the underlying environment, and certain not to create chaos for the system.’ (pg 239)

INFORMATION DOESN’T TEACH SOMEONE TO DECIDE

Decisions must maintain the congruence of the system they are being decided in. So if you’re going to decide to lose weight, your proposed changes must maintain the underlying beliefs around your current food choices, or you won’t change your habits. If you are starting a new initiative, you must make sure the folks know how to align their beliefs, ego issues, job identity, and social identity, with the proposed change, before they’ll make a creative effort to support you.

In fact, all decisions must be based on the underlying criteria (of the system) or they will either not be carried out or they will be sabatoged in some way. In other words, without buy-in, change can’t happen. And buy-in demands a new decision.

Unfortunately, leaders often assume if they focus on the correct result, offer the best information in the best way (rational, well-said, well-presented, nice) that folks will agree and follow. Or should. But we all know that’s not true. When we work hard at presenting rational, good data as the means to align behaviors, and then get push-back, we often blame the ‘follower’ rather than realizing that possibly we haven’t managed our leadership skills effectively. Not to mention that we’ve never been offered the skills to actually teach people how to make their own best decisions, separate from our biases.

HOW TO INFLUENCE WITH INTEGRITY

Imagine if you believed that folks only made new decisions when their beliefs were engaged, and not on the relevancy of your request or information. What, then, do you do to ensure buy-in? Let me ask that another way: How can you make sure that you get creative buy-in for any change initiative that gives your folks not only a leadership role, but the opportunity to truly leave an imprint on the change?

Here are a few Facilitative Questions for you to consider:

What would you need to believe differently in order to see your role as a neutral navigator – a GPS system if you will - and lead change from ‘structure’ not the ‘content.’  What would you need to believe to be willing to give up your personal view of what the change should look like and be willing to allow the change to take shape from within by aligning all of the ideas and creativity of the followers?

How would you know that you could get the most creativity and leadership from folks without reverting to compensation, stories, rules, demands, or presentations?

What would success look like if one of your goals were to help your ‘followers’ discern how to add value to the change in a way that served themselves AND the initiative AND the corporate entity?

In the Argentine Tango, the leader is the vehicle for the follower to shine. If you notice the leader, the leader is not doing his job. In fact, the expression goes like this: the leader opens the door, the follower goes through (using her own personality and presence), and then the leader follows. The entire dance is based on ensuring the follower looks her best, and grows in the process.

Join me tomorrow at my webinar. Let’s continue our conversation in an open format, where all of us can figure out how to move forward.

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Leadership Involves Helping Others Decide is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

As I’ve said so many times, the sales model will not help this happen: the selling/fund raising model used by organizations dependent on raising funds will only find those folks who are already prone to donating and in the same approximate amounts as they have done historically.

What about those untapped people who rationalize why they don’t need to donate? Those hapless folks who think that because they pay taxes, or because they donate to the Salvation Army during Christmas they are spiritually ’covered.’ How do we help these folks decide to donate? Or help those folks who traditionally donate, say, $1000, that it’s necessary (and certainly possible), to donate more?

The facts of why they should donate won’t help them change their behaviors. Indeed, the only way we’ve had of asking people for money (or trying to influence a donation) is to offer rational, information-filled, guilt-producing, or educational data as to why a particular cause is worth their money. We see this all the time when political parties attempt to raise funds.

The assumption here (like in all sales pitches) is that the right information offered in the right way to the right demographic will teach folks how to make a new decision, and how to change their regular behaviors and do something different.

The same success and failure rate apply to this endeaver: the same % of people will donate, regardless of the efficacy of the cause (disasters garnering slightly more), just like the same % of prospects will buy, regardless of the efficacy of the solution or magnitude of the need. As I say in my books, this is because sales manages the solution/need end of the buying decision and does nothing whatsoever to address the internal, off-line, behind-the-scenes, unconscious issues that must be faced before people do anything different. So offering cogent information is wasted because it’s pushing against a ‘closed’ system that already has criteria around how to spend or choose or donate.

DONATING MEANS DECIDING

When people donate, they must give away ’extra’ money they hadn’t budgeted. That means, they can’t, say, take a trip, or pay a bill.  If they had already budgeted a certain amount for donating to disaster funds, or to favorite charities, they must decide which disaster, or which charity. Unfortunately, reading about or understanding why one disaster or charity is more important or worthy than another doesn’t necessarily provide grounds for shelling out money.

What does? Who knows. I don’t know. You don’t know. And all of the books on decision making won’t help. The person who knows is the person who must write the check. What is this person’s criteria for choosing? And how will they choose one cause over another?

Before anyone will donate, they must figure out how they will choose one charity over another, how they will know how to trust one foundation over another, how to choose one area of donation (i.e. children, the earth), how they will decide the amount they want to give, how their partner or spouse feels about the donation and if it’s acceptable — and who knows what else. But it’s never about the cause itself.

We never make decisions to do anything that goes outside of our internal, often (unfortunately) unconscious criteria of values, beliefs, and historic relationships that have worked well for us. And sales never addresses this.

Use Buying Facilitation™ as a decision facilitation tool to help people decide why, when, how, and if to give money to you. Then you can offer all of the data they need (in the format they need it in) as it will then, and only then, have value. Just like you don’t need information about a gym until you decide you’re going to work out, lose weight, get fit, so buyers don’t need to know details until they have decided to change their historic behaviors.

The information you offer will NOT cause them to change their beliefs, any more than knowing the gym has a special deal for Christmas will not cause you to go to the gym – unless you had already decided that cost was your ONLY criteria.

As a way to offer what I can to help the Haitian crisis, I would like to offer some Buying Facilitation™ tips to any groups who want to raise money in their fundraising efforts for Haiti.  I look forward to hearing from those of you who need me.

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Buying Facilitation® for Fundraising: it’s much easier than sales is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

At different times in my life I taught Cha Cha (!) and became the dance partner of a pro during the Disco/Hustle era. I studied Argentine Tango for 5 years and even spent some weeks studying with a professional in Buenos Aires. I can follow just about any lead in any dance category, and I also like to dance in the middle of the room when my favorite Keb Mo is playing. Dancing fills and soothes my soul.  There: you now have all of my secrets.

Since dancing is such an integral part of my life, I dance even as I travel so such places as Perth (THE place in the world for ballroom dancing) or Oslo (where I once did an inadvertent exhibition dance in a very darkly lit nightclub with an apparently famous investigative journalist) or Lubbock (this upcoming Wednesday at Last Chance). But my very very favorite dancing experience is with my local ‘Dancing Together’ group that meets several times a week.

GABRIELLE ROTH

Originally part of Gabrielle Roth’s Five Rhythms and a local arm of the Wave dance we called Body Choir, we are a group of around 100 or so people who dance together several times a week. We range in age from around 2 (sometimes tiny babies come also) to 89. Our professions range from folks on food stamps to politicians and doctors, massage therapists and restauranteurs, house painters and artists.

We make up all ethnic groups. Our common love is dancing.  We dance in silence and barefoot for 2 hours, individually, in couples, in groups (whatever flows) to world music that someone creates as per Roth’s Waves – Flowing, Stoccato, Chaos, Lyrical, Stillness. The music may be Latin, or Jitterbug, or Tibetan Drums, or ABBA. It doesn’t matter. We just gotta dance.

Sometimes some of us might end up doing something called Contact Imrpov where our bodies fall against each other’s like cards or dominoes, holding the other up (or, individually, we’d collapse), or rolling around the floor (giggling and playing like puppies).

It opens my heart. Touching and supporting another through music and trust.

My dance this past Sunday morning (and each dance is unique) was quite profound. For some reason, several times I ended up with one or two others doing Contact Improv. To do this requires a sensitivity to offer and receive equal weight (or someone will fall) and a certain level of a meditation so one can integrate into this flowing ‘entity.’

No one leads, yet the dance seems to change from within somehow. Everyone follows, so any domination of one of the members is cause to follow. And then the next person becomes the leader. Or not. It is such a sweet flow. Sortof like a Quaker meeting in which things just happen.

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

Sunday, as I danced in these pods, I began wondering how one person decided to take the lead for a moment and the others knew, instantly it seemed, to follow, to become receptors, how there seemed to be internal, millisecond agreement to follow each person who imperceptibly took the lead, and how there was no competition: it seemed that there was an equal dominance/receptor equation – each person seemed to take the lead in proportion to the others (men and women taking equal turns leading and following).

How did that flow, that acceptance, that agreement happen – especially with no words spoken? What had to be true for there to be trust in fairness and respect and leadership? Was the non-verbal quality of the experience, or the fact we were all responding to the same music, the difference that makes the difference?

I was thinking about how well-run businesses are similar, or should be anyway. Each person being aware of the greater identity, being fully themselves and offering their talent, while becoming a follower to another’s lead.  An  environment where folks simply trust and respect that everyone will have their own voice and can be nourished and respected, even when another is in charge.

With my upcoming webinar on decision making and influencing with integrity, I’ve begun thinking of leadership, respect, flow, and what influencing is. I keep coming up with new thoughts. Am reading some books on it. It’s certainly a moveable feast at the moment. And I invite you all to join me in thinking about this:

How is dance similar to leadership? Group dynamics? Influencing? And how is trust and respect created and maintained? How do people flow together for the greater good, and know how to serve and respond to each other without competition or roles?

I look forward to having us think about these questions and discuss them together. Who wants to lead?

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Dancing Together is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Check out their site. It’s a very fun, useful site with lots of ideas and cogent articles, tips, and tools.

Hopefully, they will be so impressed with my webinar, about helping influence teams so they buy-in to leadership initiatives, that they will add some Buying Facilitation™ or decision facilitation skills to their roster. Using my unique decision making models, my session will offer new ways to make better decisions and inspire others through change, while helping team members eagerly choose to be a creative part of the change. Here is the sign up data http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/glp/29796/index.html?promocode=189WL

This is a welcome foray for me outside of the ‘sales’ arena where my models have been historically slotted: it’s becoming understood how necessary decision facilitation skills are in leadership and change management. In this webinar, I have a great forum to use my material in the way it was initially intended: to serve others.

Imagine if every human being had the skills to help each other (in business or personal life) make their own best decisions based on their own values and internal criteria. Imagine what a world we’d live in if we could all do that. That’s the world I’m working hard (with many others in the Spirit in the Workplace and Corporate Social Responsibility fields) to help create.

Join me at this seminar, pick up some new skills to be great leaders and decision makers, and let’s do it, together. I promise you a lot of information and a really fun time. And if you need help deciding whether or not this is the right seminar for you, call me and I’ll help you decide :)

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Business Management Daily makes leadership easy is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

The definition used in Tango is my favorite:  If you notice the leader, he’s not doing a very good job. The job of the leader is to get the best out of his follower and get out of the way: He opens the door, the follower goes through exhibiting her best, and then the leader follows. I believe that it’s a leader’s job to help followers - colleagues, staff, partners, teammates -  make the decisions they need to make to achieve excellence.

Of course we all know many leaders who believe it’s their job to make the decisions and get their followers to do their bidding. They call that Influencing, and there are many methods and models that teach this. But doing it this way often comes back to haunt: when people are not part of the decision making process and haven’t bought in to the proposed change, they may go through their own brand of sabatoge, acting out, forgetfulness, or misinterpretation en route to following orders. Their knowledge of the environment, of the day-to-day working conditions, and their creative ideas, are ignored. We see this frequently with tech implementations. Indeed, requests made by senior people for ‘underlings’ to do their bidding are often met with failure.

Here is an example that I found to be costly on many levels. I was doing interviews for a book on decision making, and spoke with one of the CEOs of a two-company merger between two extremely well-known brands. This man told me how he went about ensuring the national team bought-in to the change. He developed a multimillion dollar ‘dog and pony’ show, and went out with a team to 30,000 employees in store-fronts across America to give them an understanding of the merger (that had already been planned and executed, with no one’s knowledge or buy-in). How successful was it?

“They all loved it. Loved it. Well, most of them did anyway. There were about 10% who didn’t buy-in.”

SDM: What happened to these 3,000 people?

“They became a retention issue.” [A 'retention issue'?]

SDM: You mean you fired them all?

“Well, we had to. But not to worry: they were the folks that had been around the longest – 18 or 20 years. It was time to make room for new blood anyway.”

They fired the wisdom, the bedrock of their company – the skeleton, the bones, the legacy – because these ’old-timers’ didn’t like a dog-and-pony-show.

GETTING BUY-IN

Imagine if the CEO’s criteria were to keep employees, keep them happy, and use their combined wisdom to help create the sort of change that everyone would buy-in to. Imagine if the CEO thought it was his job to give the employees a chance to buy-in to the change and help influence the direction and execution of it. Imagine if the CEO helped the 30,000 people decide to actively support it and offer creative ideas throughout the process, thus becoming an asset to the merger. And then get to keep the history of the company.

Change happens when the internal systems issues become willing and able to buy-in to disruption and a new reality, and are able to see a clear route through to implementing the new in a way that leaves their jobs in tact, their egos accentuated, their ideas worthy of consideration. In other words, the people, policies, rules, relationships and historic issues that maintain the status quo must be involved with aspects of the proposed shift. After all, that is what a system is: it’s a group of interdependent elements that work together to create a set of agreed-upon rules and roles. Change represents a disruption of the system, and system will work hard to maintain their status quo.

In order to lead folks through to change, a leader must help those in the system buy-in to a shift in their system. Each person in the system – individually and as a group – must  decide to help, shift, learn, and become an active part of the change in order to ensure that the change will be implemented successfully. We all know that to date, most technology implementations cost $5 to fix every $1 expenditure in technology, because of the problems getting buy-in to the change.

How ’bout if our leaders learn how to facilitate decision making? If they hold as ideal the ability to get buy-in, gather creative ideas, instill dedication and commitment BEFORE any proposed change, and find a way to help them manage parts of the change internally, on their own, from the bottom up. Imagine.

To see a presentation I gave to an annual World Future Society conference 2 years ago, please click here.

I look forward to having ongoing conversations with you all about this topic. In this time of change and confusion, I believe it’s necessary for our leaders learn to facilitate the decisions and choices of our colleagues and employees so they can buy-in and add value.

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Leadership and Decision Making is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com