I’m curious why so many professionals are satisfied using change and support practices knowing the fail rates in their industry: change management has a 97% fail rate as do all Behavior Modification practices; coaching and training have a 90% fail rate; and sales a 95% fail rate.
A leader in the Change Management field complained of persistent resistance during a recent call, showing me the model he was using that had ‘connect with/convince people’ at Step 6. I suggested the problem might be he brought people in too late to gather the full fact pattern of the underlying problem making goal-setting certain to be flawed, and setting up resistance when solutions are thrust on folks without their input.
Why, I wondered, had he kept using a change model that regularly got resistance rather than do something different? “What else can I do? There’s nothing else to use.”
Sales is also based on a flawed premise, starting with a desire to place solutions and prospecting for folks with a ‘need’ by posing biased questions they can then sell into. But with a 5% close rate, ‘need’ may not be the reason people buy.
Coaching has a similar problem. Coaches assume they must ‘understand’ the client’s problem by posing questions meant to either gather data or lead to problem solving. And yet clients often don’t find a permanent solutions.
WHY YOU CAN’T CHANGE OTHER’S BEHAVIORS
I’ve developed new models that increase successful permanent change, and enable efficient values-based decision making that use different intent and tools. But I’d like to first offer you some of my Morgenisms:
- You can’t change a behavior by trying to change a behavior;
- Selling doesn’t cause buying;
- The time it takes people to understand their risk of change is the length of the change/sales cycle;
- Brains hear as per a Listener’s existing (historic, biased) neural circuits that translate the incoming sound vibrations/signals (i.e. words) into meaning, very often quite different than the intent of the Speaker.
- Questions are posed using the Asker’s wording, intent, needs and goals, and as such, are biased by the assumptions of the Asker, which may not be aligned with the needs, goals of the Receiver.
In other words, using conventional practices (questions, stories, examples, explanations, information sharing) influencers may not be able to persuade Others to act on their suggestions as there’s a strong possibility they won’t accurately hear/interpret what’s been said. As I’ll explain, there’s a way to help folks make necessary changes directly in their brains.
WHERE DOES CHANGE COME FROM?
Any change, any decision, any willingness to do, know, be something different requires different actions in the brain. Standard models attempt to change behaviors by trying to change behaviors! Not possible, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution presented: behaviors are outputs from specific prompts in the brain, not changeable without changing the original neural programming that triggered them.
Change is a brain thing. The dilemma for influencers is that due to the way brains listen and store history, information provided may not reach the specific circuits that triggered the problematic action. Just because we lead others through what seems like a rational change or decision-making process, or try to convince folks to eat healthy or pitch them a great solution, doesn’t mean our words will change the place in the brain where their problem initiated.
What is we give influencers the job of changing brains rather than behaviors, so the client can then make their necessary behavior changes from within.
NOT VENUS RISING
Behaviors are the result, the outputs, of meaningless electrochemical computations in the brain; they do not arise like Venus from the sea.
When we try to change behaviors without changing the circuits that triggered them, it’s like telling a forward moving robot to move backwards by explaining why it should, or showing it a video of other backwards robots, or telling it a story of the benefits of flexibility. You must go back to the original programming and reprogram. And the job of influencing change is both a listening problem and a questioning problem.
THE LISTENING PROBLEM
I’ll explain the issues that make change a problem for outside influencers. To begin with, it’s a listening problem. Brains don’t hear incoming words as per the meaning the Speaker intended.
Incoming sound vibrations (words, or ‘meaningless puffs of air’ as neuroscience calls them) get translated according to the existing neural circuits in the brain of the Listener (i.e. biased, restricted), circuits that may have no relation at all to what was said or how distant it is from the original intent. It’s automatic, meaningless, and electrochemical.
Indeed, there’s a good chance something said will be misinterpreted by the Listener. It’s all unconscious and electrochemical. Think motherboard.
It becomes a multifaceted problem: Speakers may misunderstand Responders, Responders may misunderstand Speakers. And no one knows how their intended message was received or if what they think they heard is accurate.
Obviously this gives leaders, docs, coaches, and sellers dilemmas when they offer what they consider necessary information (no matter how relevant).
That’s the first hurdle. The next is the questions we ask.
THE QUESTION PROBLEM
Leaders, coaches, sellers, and doctors try to pose ‘right’ questions to discover the Other’s problem or to gather data to understand. This is problematic in many ways:
- Both Speaker or Listener may inaccurately hear what the other intends to convey, possibly misinterpreting what was said without being aware they’re doing so;
- The question may not be worded in a way that the Listener hears what’s intended and may unconsciously go against the values of the Listener causing resistance.
To address these problems I spent 10 years inventing a wholly new form of question [Facilitative Question], and 13 steps of change that enable Listeners to accurately hear the incoming message and leads them to the relevant brain circuits where the initiating triggers reside for discovery and change.
In other words, Influencers unwittingly use questions that may not 1. gather accurate data, 2. be heard accurately, 3. enable the Responder to reprogram their brain to make change possible. Hence you end up with change initiatives that
- face resistance and sabotage,
- fail to collect the full data set and face faulty goals, time delays, and resistance,
- are based on the viewpoints of a small group who seem to believe they can speak for the entire group
- fly in the face of the beliefs and values of the underlying system,
- assume Listeners will make permanent change based on direction from a seller, healthcare provider, leaders, or coach,
- don’t trust that Others have their own answers or routes to permanent change.
But it’s possible to facilitate Others through to permanent brain change. My book HOW? teaches Change Facilitation to accomplish this, including traversing the steps of change, formulating Facilitative Questions, changing perspectives, shifting hierarchies of beliefs, and listening without bias. Additionally, I coach and train folks to enable influencers to facilitate permanent, congruent change directly from the appropriate neural circuits.
I recognize this isn’t standard thinking yet. But my Change Facilitation model has been successfully trained to 100,000 sales folks and leaders globally. Contact me and I can coach or train you.
_______________________
