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We Don’t Know How to Hear Each Other: how biases distort our conversations

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As a Buddhist, I don’t understand why anyone would want to take another’s life or how it’s even an option. Yet so many in our country are feeling disempowered and ignored, targeted and disenfranchised and we haven’t yet created a dialogue to heal. In fact, we don’t even know how to hear each other. During this time of racial, class, political, gender, and education divide, of distrust and blame and victimhood, of killing and guns and violence, our inability to deeply hear each other is heartbreaking and costly.

I’m not going into the moral issues of Right/Wrong here. But I can offer my bit to make it possible to find solutions.

The Problem: How Our Brains Listen

During the 3 years researching and writing a book on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I learned how ubiquitous our challenge is: the distance between our subjective experiences and cultures makes it almost impossible to accurately hear others outside of our own ingrained biases, assumptions, and triggers. Indeed, words can’t be correctly translated when the intended meaning gets lost in another’s unfamiliar mind-set, culture, and history; the possibility of finding collaboration and reconciliation gets lost in our communication.

Heartfelt intent and tears aside, we’ve not been taught how to listen without bias. From the individual spots we each stand in, with our restricting viewpoints and hot-buttons, we pose biased questions and make faulty assumptions, overlooking the possibility that our Communication Partner (CP) may have similar foundational beliefs that we just don’t know how to recognize.

Unfortunately, our brain causes the problem. It translates what’s been said into what’s comfortable or inflammatory or habitual or or… and doesn’t realize it has misunderstood, or mistranslated the Speaker’s intent. So we actually hear ABL when our CP said ABC and we have no reason to think what we we’ve ‘heard’ is faulty. I lost a partnership this way. During a conversation, John got annoyed at something he thought I said. I tried to correct him:

“That’s not what I said.” I told him.
“I know what I heard! Don’t try to get away with anything here!
“But I didn’t say that at all!
“John, I was sitting right here. She’s right. She never said that,” said his wife.
“You’re both lying!!! I’m outta here!!” And he stomped out of the room, ending our partnership.

It’s pernicious: our brains select a translation for us, reducing whole conversations and categories of people to caricature and subjective assumption. But to distinguish what’s meant from what we think we hear, to experience what others want to convey when it’s out of our experience, we must recognize when it’s time to make a new choice.

How To Do How

We need a way forward to choose behaviors that maintain our Beliefs, Values, and Identity AND find common ground to listen to each other and come to consensus with action steps to help us all heal. I’m going to offer some steps for us to dialogue and reach win/win consensus. But first I’ll a few foundational truths:

  • Everyone’s experience and history is valid, unique, and guides their choices.
  • Others cannot see or feel what you see or feel.
  • Everyone has a right to the same basics: health, a living wage, good work, safety for our families, education.
  • All change, including adopting new ideas, is threatening to the status quo and will cause resistance unless there is buy-in at the level of beliefs.

We must

  • recognize common beliefs and values we can buy-in to without impairing our individual values,
  • feel safe in conversations when it feels like we’re speaking with enemies,
  • override our resistance and biases to find common intentions, compassion and outcomes,
  • be able to hear another’s intended message without overlaying our biases, assumptions, and habits.

I’ve put together a few action steps to begin to dialogue with those we’ve historically sat in opposition to. I also recommend that our conversations must work toward win/win. I call this a We Space.

1. Get agreement for a dialogue: It’s likely that you and your CP have different goals and life experiences. Begin by agreeing to have a conversation to do nothing more than find common ground.

  • “I’d like to have a dialogue that might lead to us to an agreeable route forward that meets both of our goals. If you agree, do you have thoughts on where you’d like to begin?”
  • “I wonder if we can find common goals so we might possibly find some agreement to work from. I’m happy to share my goals with you; I’d like to hear yours as well. ”

2. Set the frame for common values: We all have similar foundational values, hopes and fears – they’re just different. Start by ‘chunking up’ to find agreement.

  • “I’d like to find a way to communicate that might help us find a common values so we can begin determining if there are places we can agree. Any thoughts on how you’d like to proceed?”
  • “It seems we’re in opposite mind-sets. What might be a comfortable way forward for us to discover if there is any agreement at all we can start from?”

3. Enter without bias: With limiting beliefs or hidden agendas, there’s no way to find commonality. Replace emotions and blame with a new bias, just for this conversation: the ‘bias’ of collaboration.

  • ‘I’m willing to find common ground and put aside my normal reactions for this hour but it will be a challenge since I’m so angry. Do you want to share your difficulty in this area, or are you ok with it and can help me? How do we move forward without bias?’

4. Get into Observer: In case you have difficulty overcoming your biases and filters, here’s a physiological ‘How-To’ that comes straight from NLP: in your mind’s eye, see yourself up on the ceiling, looking down on yourself and your CP. It will virtually remove you from the fray, and offer an unbiased view of your interaction – one step removed as it were. One way to do this is to walk around during the conversation, or sit way, way back in a chair. Sitting forward keeps you in your biases. (Chapter 6 in What? teaches how to do this.)

5. Notice body language/words: Your CP is speaking/listening from beliefs, values, history, feelings, exhibited in their body language and eye contact. From your ceiling perch, notice how their physical stance matches their words, the level of passion, feelings, and emotion. Now look down and notice how you look and sound in relation to your CP. Just notice. Read Carol Goman’s excellent book on the subject.

6. Notice triggers: The words emphasized by your CP hold their beliefs and biases. They usually appear at the very beginning or end of a sentence. You may also hear absolutes: Always, Never; lots of You’s may be the vocabulary of blame. Silence, folded arms, a stick-straight torso may show distrust. Just notice where/when it happens and don’t take it personally – it’s not personal. Don’t forget to notice your own triggers, or blame/victim words of your own. If their words trigger you into your own subjective viewpoints, get yourself back into Observer; you’ll have choice from the ceiling. But just in case:

  • “I’m going to try very hard to speak/listen without my historic biases. If you find me getting heated, or feel blame, I apologize as that’s not my intent. If this should happen, please tell me you’re not feeling heard and I’ll do my best to work from a place of compassion and empathy.”

7. Summarize regularly: Because the odds are bad that you’ll actually hear what your CP means to convey, it’s necessary to summarize what you hear after every exchange:

  • “Sounds to me like you said, “XX”. Is that correct? What would you like me to understand that I didn’t understand or that I misheard?”

8. ‘I’ statements: Stay away from ‘You’ if possible. Try to work from the understanding that you’re standing in different shoes and there is no way either of you can see the other’s landscape.

  • “When I hear you say X it sounds to me like you are telling me that YY. Is that true?”
  • “When I hear you mention Y, I feel like Z and it makes me want to get up from the table as I feel you really aren’t willing to hear me. How can we handle this so we can move forward together?”

9. Get buy-in each step of the way: Keep checking in, even if it seems obvious that you’re on the same page. It’s really easy to mistranslate what’s been said when the listening filters are different.

  • “Seems to me like we’re on the same page here. I think we’re both saying X. Is that true? What am I missing?”
  • “What should I add to my thinking that I’m avoiding or not understanding the same way you are? Is there a way you want me to experience what it looks like from your shoes that I don’t currently know how to experience? Can you help me understand?”

10. Check your gut: Notice when/if your stomach gets tight, or your throat hurts. These are sure signs that your beliefs are being stepped on. If that happens, make sure you get back up to the ceiling, and then tell your CP:

  • “I’m experience some annoyance/anger/fear/blame. That means something we’re discussing is going against one of my beliefs or values. Can we stop a moment and check in with each other so we don’t go off the rails?”

11. Get agreement on the topics in the conversation: One step at a time; make sure you both agree to each item, and skip the ones (for now) where there’s no agreement. Put them in a Parking Lot for your next conversation.

12. Get agreement on action items: Simple steps for forward actions should become obvious; make sure you both work on action items together.

13. Get a time on the calendar for the next meeting: Make sure you discuss who else needs to be brought into the conversation, end up with goals you can all agree on and walk away with an accurate understanding of what’s been said and what’s expected.

Until or unless we all hold the belief that none of us matter if some of us don’t; until or unless we’re all willing to take the responsibility of each needless death or killing; until or unless we’re each willing to put aside our very real grievances to seek a higher good, we’ll never heal. It’s not easy. But by learning how to hear each other with compassion and empathy, our conversations can begin. We must be willing to start sharing our Truth and our hearts. It’s the only real start we can make.

About the Author

Sharon Drew MorgenSharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

Listening Biases: how we restrict opportunity

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I got to the gym yesterday only to find that my regular treadmill had been replaced by a new-fangled computer machine thing. I asked the young woman next to me how to start the damn thing as it wasn’t obvious. Here was the conversation:

SDM: Where’s the start button on this thing?
Woman: Over there. You’ll want to start on 2.3 miles and…
SDM: Thanks for showing me. I’m good now. Thanks.
Woman: You’re starting too high! Plus, you’ll want to put it at an incline of 1% to start, then…
SDM: No. Really. I’m good.
Woman: I’m telling you the right way to do this! I’m a professional trainer! I know what I’m talking about!
SDM: I’m sure you do. But I’m good. Thanks.
Woman: What’s your problem, lady??? You asked me for my advice! I’m just responding to your question! I’M A PROFESSIONAL!

That woman converted my simple request to start a machine into a request for her expertise – what she wanted to hear rather than what I meant – and she was so out of choice (see article on How vs What) that she couldn’t recognize my attempt to disengage from the conversation – three times! But we all do this sort of thing.

Biases

Far too often, we shove what someone means to convey into the small box of what we’re listening for and end up tangling or misdirecting conversations – certainly limiting possible outcomes. We’re actually filtering what we hear through our unconscious biases. Let me introduce you to some of the more common ones out of the hundreds of recognized biases:

Confirmation bias: we listen to get personal validation, often using leading questions, to confirm to ourselves that we’re right; we seek out people and ideas to confirm our own views and maintain our status quo.

Expectation bias: we decide what we want to take away from a conversation prior to entering, causing us to only pick out the bits that match and disregarding the rest; we mishear and misinterpret what’s said to conform to our goals.

Status quo bias: we listen to confirm that we’re fine the way we are and reject any information that proves we may be wrong.

Attention bias: we ignore what we don’t want to hear – and often don’t even hear, or acknowledge, something has been said.

Information bias: we gather the information we’ve deemed ‘important’ to push our own agendas or prove a point. When used for data analysis, we often collect information according to expectation bias and selection bias. (This biases scientific and social research, and data analysis.)

And of course, we all have a Bias Blind Spot: we naturally believe we’re not biased – just Right! And anyone that doesn’t believe we’re Right is Wrong.

Our Brains Bias Autonomously

When researching my book on how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I discovered that our brains only allow us to understand a fraction of what others mean to convey (Note: the fraction depends on different types of familiarity, triggers, history, beliefs, etc.). because our brains seek to ‘protect’ us; unfortunately they don’t even let us know that what was meant isn’t being correctly received. So the woman in the opening story actually heard me ask her for advice.

I believe our success is regulated by our listening biases and our ability – or not – to recognize when/if our biases are getting in the way (I wrote a chapter in What? that offers a skill set on how to do this). Certainly our creativity and opportunities, our choices of jobs, mates, friends, etc. are restricted. The natural biasing we do is compounded by the tricks our brains play with memory and habit, making the probability of factual interpretation, of an intended meaning, pretty slim.

If we can avoid the trap of assuming what we think has been said is accurate, and assume that some portion of what we think has been said might contain some bias, we could take more responsibility for our conversations. Here’s what we’d do:

  • At the end of each conversation, we’d check in with our Communication Partner and get accuracy agreement.
  • Whenever we hear something that sounds like an agreement or a plan, we’d stop the flow of the conversation to check that what we think we heard is accurate.
  • At the end of meetings, we’d check in that our takeaway plans and their outcomes are agreeable.
  • When we hear something ‘different’ we won’t assume the other person wrong, but consider the possibility that we are the ones who heard it wrong.

Knowing the difference between what we think others are saying vs what they actually mean to convey takes on great importance in meetings, coaching calls, negotiations, doctors, and information collection for decision analysts. Let’s get rid of our egos. Let’s begin to put our need to collaborate, pursue win/win communication, and authentic Servant Leadership into all our communication. Otherwise, we’re merely finding situations that maintain our status quo. And we lose the opportunity to be better, stronger, kinder, and more creative.

About the Author

Sharon Drew MorgenSharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

The How of Heart

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Collaboration. Empowerment. Win/Win. Integrity. Authenticity. We’re finally recognizing the efficacy of acting with humanitarian values! But how do we DO it? How do we know what, or if, to change our comfortable communication patterns? How do we modify any unconscious behaviors to make new habitual choices and recognize when what we’re doing no longer is sufficient?

I’m excited: I’ve spent my life designing models that work with the unconscious to facilitate real change and choice. Esoteric, I suppose. But I’ve always known that habitual change cannot come from merely attempting to change behaviors.

From Abuse to Decryption: The How of Choice

As a child of extreme domestic, sexual, and physical violence, I frequently ran away to a rock on a nearby reservoir for safety and solace. Because I was an ‘A’ student, cheerleader, school pianist and Editor of the school newspaper – one of those ‘good kids’ – I couldn’t understand why I was being abused (The skeleton in the closet appeared years later.). Unfortunately, there were no agencies to help me in those days.

Sitting and thinking by the water, I wrote in Thinking Journals to decode my parents’ behaviors (In retrospect, odd for an 11-year-old.) so I could recognize an oncoming assault – something many incest survivors do. My dream was to make the data available so no child, no human, would ever be harmed again. I believed that people would prefer to do no harm if they could make mindful choices rather than have harmful, unconscious reactions. This ambitious goal matched my fledgling identity: when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I’d say “Change the world”. How odd for someone so young! (I was diagnosed with a form of Asperger’s decades later.).

During my years by the water, my Thinking Journals, of which there are now hundreds, filled with rookie drawings, illustrations, and ideas of ways to recognize patterns in both conversation and actions. For decades thereafter, I studied how language works with the brain, how brains create habits, and how to tear apart and understand human systems to add choice.

Decades later, as an entrepreneur, I had a complete, scalable skill set that facilitates a route between unconscious triggers and habits to make new choices: a new way to listen to avoid biases and assumptions, a new form of question that enables brains to capture, systemize, and shift the unconscious rules that govern each of us, and the sequence of change and choice so any aberrant behaviors could be interrupted and redirected. I developed a model of How to Change congruently that adopts the new without resistance; I’ve been teaching this in sales, coaching, leadership, and change management.

Much different than offering the Why and What of change, I offer the How – how to go into the unconscious and make systemic, congruent change.

Why Behavior Change Isn’t Good Enough

Our brains unconsciously choose our behaviors from our cache of lifelong subjective experience that I call our system; our subjective experience is a well-oiled machine that keeps us ticking congruently every moment of the day. Our viewpoints, our styles, our behaviors are all pre-determined and set to maintain systems congruence. I realize we all think we have unrestricted choice; we don’t. We follow our personal ‘company line’ in every communication.

When we wish to add anything new, it will be resisted as it will cause our system to shift out of congruence – even if it’s something we’re in agreement with because our brains must fit the new in with the old/habitual. We know we should go to the gym more often, or eat healthy; we know we should allow our relatives to have disparate political viewpoints. But try as we might, we hard-pressed to permanently change our behaviors. This is the problem with conventional training and Self-Help books.

Why can’t we just DO something different? Because it’s a Belief issue. The 400-pound man walking down the street will not heed an offer of a half-priced gym membership – not because he hasn’t looked in the mirror lately or because he’s ignoring his doctor’s warnings, but because his eating and lack of exercise are habitual: to make a permanent change, he’d have to ‘chunk up’ as they say in NLP, and go beyond the ‘What’ or the ‘Why’; he’d have to change his beliefs about who he is. He’d have to become a healthy person.

‘What’ to do is behavioral. ‘How’ is structural, systemic, and unconscious. Here’s an example of the difference: ZDNet has an article on transforming an organization on the principles of collaboration. They say it’s necessary to “Empower staff”: “To accomplish this goal it is important to train, support, and mentor staff to help them work more collaboratively. Staff must also practice their new collaboration skills back in the workplace so it becomes the new daily business and not just the latest management fad.”

Great. But HOW does one accomplish this? Everyone will interpret these words subjectively, according to their own beliefs about their skills. Obviously there can’t be organization-wide consistent adoption with just the What. ‘What’ offers a description and doesn’t address how to redirect our brain’s automatic choices. To convert the ‘What’ to the ‘How’ we must

  • add automatic unconscious choices to our habitual behaviors to comply with our new goals;
  • recognize the difference between what we think we’re doing and what we’re actually doing;
  • install something new without offending what’s been working well;
  • facilitate internal buy-in to make changes in the Status Quo;
  • override habitual behavior choices and replace them with the new as appropriate;
  • maintain systems congruence.

It’s far more complicated than just understanding What to Do. It’s actually How to Be.

Changing Beliefs Causes Changed Behaviors

The problem with seeking to act with authenticity or empowerment, etc., is that we attempt to make behavioral changes without shifting the underlying system that holds our current choices in place. We must change from our core Identities and Beliefs.

All of us have unique Identities; our Beliefs are the operating manuals; our Behaviors exhibit our Beliefs in action. Every day, in every way, we ACT who we ARE. I, for one, work out at the gym 9 hours a week. I hate it. Hate it. Words can’t describe how much I hate going to the gym. But I’m fit, healthy and strong. I AM a Healthy Person; my Behaviors carry out my Identity accordingly: I eat healthy, exercise, and meditate. We all do this in our own ways.

When anything seeks to change us – when we receive training, or get told to ‘do’ something, or when coaches ‘suggest’ or sellers ‘recommend’ or leaders promote a new change – it shows up as a threat and will be resisted unless it’s accepted and adopted by our Identity and given a value set in our Beliefs.

To act with compassion, to have empathy, to lead with values, to design collaborative environments, we need a set of core Beliefs that get incorporated into our habitual choices; we need to inform our system to match the Doing to the Being. We cannot congruently act the Doing if it’s incongruent with our Identity. It’s the most difficult aspect of change – creating consistent, habitual actions – because it’s unconscious, systemic, and resistant. It is possible, however, but not simple.

Working, speaking, acting with Heart is not behavioral. We must first Be the people with heart; Be kind, collaborative, authentic people. Organizations need to shift their corporate identities and manage behavioral adoption; we must become Servant Leaders and compassionate Leaders. We just need the Skills of How to accomplish this.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

Overcoming Opposition

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I’m regularly flummoxed when I hear people question climate change, or when folks actually believe that people of color are ‘different’ and worthy of being insulted, underpaid, ignored. What’s up with Congress and why can’t that many smart people find grounds for compromise? And why do women still only earn a fraction of what men earn? Are we not smart enough? Worthy?

With our unique, subjective stances, we attempt to change the opinions of others to concur with us: Liberals attempt to change Conservatives; races try to engender diversity; sellers attempt to convince buyers their status quo is flawed; techies/engineers/scientists/doctors believe they hold the Smart Card of Right/Knowledge/Rationale and work at pushing their opinions accordingly. Yet rarely do we make a dent. Others are ‘stubborn’ ‘stupid’ ‘irrational’ ‘ill-informed’ while we, of course, hold the high ground.

Core Beliefs Maintain Our Lives

The problem that causes all this ‘stubbornness’ and difficulty achieving alignment is the difference in core beliefs. Developed over our lifetimes via our experience and life path and forming the core of our subjective biases, they embody our Identity. And as the foundation of our daily decisions and status quo, it all feels just fine. It’s who we are, and we live – and restrict – our lives in service to these beliefs: we choose jobs, newspapers, neighborhoods and life partners accordingly. While researching my new book What? on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I learned we even interpret what others say to maintain our subjectivity.

Every day we (our companies, families, etc.) wake up congruent; we work hard to maintain our status quo, aided by our habits and memory. Every day, in every way, we regenerate our biases; in service to maintaining systems congruence, we filter in/out anything that causes us to question status quo. Anything that threatens this faces resistance and conflict as part of self-preservation. Why would anyone disrupt their stable internal systems just because something from outside that attacks our core beliefs tells us to? When pundits say our behaviors are ‘irrational’ they ignore the fact that all of our beliefs are rational to our systems. Everyone seeks to maintain their status quo at all costs. Literally.

And when we hear others spout ideas that run counter to our beliefs and potentially challenge our views, opinions, habits and norms, we feel challenged and set about finding ways to convince others to believe as we do. But our attempts to change minds must fail

  • Because our ‘relevant’ information, carefully culled from studies, pundits, target intellectuals or politicians to prove we’re Right, is biased according to our own subjective beliefs and likely not the same studies, pundits, target intellectuals, or politicians that our Communication Partner would believe.
  • Because we’re arrogant. We’re telling others I’m right/you’re wrong.
  • Because information doesn’t teach anyone how to change, and it can’t even be heard accurately, unless they are already prepared to do so.
  • Because we cause resistance.

Agreement Requires Belief Modification

As outsiders we will never fully understand how another’s idiosyncratic beliefs create their opinions. Nor do we need to. We just need to find agreement somewhere; we must eschew the need to be Right. We must enter each discussion as a blank slate, without a map or biases, with the only stated goal being to find common ground.

Imagine if you believed (there’s that word again) that you had no answers, no ‘Right Factor’, only the ability to facilitate an examination of a higher order of beliefs that you can both agree on.

Instead of trying to match your own beliefs, find a belief you can match. Maybe you can agree that maintaining climate health is valuable, and merely disagree on causation or cures and move on from there. Here are some steps:

  • Enter conversations without bias, need to be right, or expectation.
  • Enter with a goal to find a higher order of agreement rather than a specific outcome.
  • Chunk up to find a category that’s agreeable to both and fits everyone’s beliefs.
  • Begin examining the category to find other agreeable points.
  • Use the agreeable points to move toward collaboration where possible.

I’m a Buddhist. I’ve learned that there is no such thing as being Right. But I’ve also learned that I don’t need to disrespect my own beliefs or undermine my own tolerance level to be compassionate and recognize that everyone has a right to believe as they do. Of course sometimes I’m willing to lose a friend or client if another’s beliefs are so far outside my identity that I feel harmed. But I understand that my stance, too, is most likely biased and defensive. I, too, might have to alter my beliefs to be more amenable to collaboration.

Here is the question I ask myself at times I feel the need to change someone’s opinion: Would I rather be Right, or in Relationship?

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.

Successful Fundraising: getting chosen over the competition

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Your important nonprofit or exciting startup helps the world be a better place. But now you’ve got to raise money. You’ve created a terrific pitch deck, have a highly competent management team and terms, and have identified donor prospects with major gift potential. You’ve designed a multi-channel approach to build relationships with small investors to excite them to becoming large investors. Why aren’t you raising all the funding you deserve?

  • It’s not you, your message. or your organization;
  • It’s not the strength of your relationship or who you ‘know’;
  • It’s not the market, your competition, your return potential or your marketing materials.

Somehow your investors must choose between investments that seem equally promising.

Criteria vs. Content

Ultimately, investors choose opportunities based on their own idiosyncratic choice criteria; your marketing efforts may be entering the wrong way, with the wrong goal, offering the right data and asking the right questions at the wrong time.

Investor funds are not sitting there waiting for you to show up, no matter how compelling your information or terms. You may be requesting funding that:

  1. is earmarked for something else;
  2. needs stakeholder buy-in;
  3. may be outside their internal goals, relationships, strategy, or agreements.

Sadly, as an outsider, you have no access to their hidden or historic arrangements or political mind-fields. And asking them about their criteria will only get you the obvious answers. The more successful choice is to first, collaboratively, discern their values-based, unique decision/choice criteria and then offer the exact pitch to match it. After all, most pitch decks and requests for funds will sound somewhat similar. If nothing else, your ability to facilitate a collaboration will set you apart from the competition.

Alignment Criteria First

Decades ago I realized the difference between choice criteria (personal, idiosyncratic) vs content (data). As a sales professional on Wall Street I was frustrated with the seeming gap between what I thought prospects needed (my solution, of course) and their willingness to buy. Once I started up a tech company in London and became The Buyer I realized the problem: before any decision to buy or fund, investors use an idiosyncratic set of choice factors familiar only to them.

As a Buyer, before I bought anything I had to align my values-based criteria with my team’s often divergent and – conventional choice benchmarks aside – subjective, criteria. Whether we met before a vendor meeting or afterwards I learned to never ignore this team alignment: our vibrant conversations always brought more considerations to the table than I would have considered myself; sometimes we discovered as-yet-unforeseen fallout that needed to be handled prior to any action.

And then the problem with marketing materials. As a sales professional they were a tool to exhibit the data I believed relevant; as a buyer they were biased by the facts the presenters wanted me to know, but often missed my unique buying criteria.

I used this realization to change the course of my own selling and fundraising; I first uncovered and discussed decision criteria and then matched my pitch content accordingly. Rather than designing pitch material based on what I thought they wanted to know, I designed flexible materials that made it easy to fit my content into their choice criteria.

Buying Facilitation®

As a result of my findings, in 1985 I developed a decision facilitation model and guidelines for designing presentation materials for my sales staff. With my new realization as a buyer, my Asperger’s systems- thinking brain, and some testing, I coded the path of internal/group decision making and invented Buying Facilitation®, a generic, ethical, facilitation tool that expedites decision making and choice.

I’ve been teaching and writing books on Buying Facilitation® as a front-end to the sales model ever since. Used in fundraising, Buying Facilitation® helps investors determine all aspects of their choice criteria while encouraging win/win collaboration.

NOTE: Investors and buyers go through this process anyway – with you or without you. You can either use Buying Facilitation® to facilitate choice more efficiently (even during your presentation) or just keep smiling and dialing until you find the low hanging fruit who have finally gotten their ducks in a row.
Buying Facilitation® works on the following assumptions:

  1. Outsiders (sellers, fundraisers, etc.) can never understand the behind-the-scenes, idiosyncratic criteria used to decide. Each group has their own unique sets of rules, beliefs, values, vision they choose from;
  2. Until the idiosyncratic choice criteria are factored, no decision to buy or invest will be made;
  3. Information is only relevant when it fits into defined idiosyncratic initiatives and parameters.

Using Buying Facilitation® first enables collaboration through the full range of systemic decisions necessary for buy-in and choice; THEN customized content must meet their specific criteria.

Presenting with Buying Facilitation®

Here are a few tips:

Your first job is to be a consultant (even on cold calls or group meetings) to facilitate decision making. Otherwise, you’re offering data into a black box of unknowns. Stop trying to have a ‘relationship’ or gather and share data up front; money goes to those opportunities that first match their hidden criteria regardless of how likeable you are.

  1. On your first calls, use Facilitative Questions to help whomever you speak with (yes, even the associates and gatekeepers) recognize how they choose, and achieve consensus for, new investments. This is not a simple Q/A session, as much of their decision making criteria is unconscious. Even if they usually fund projects like yours, they still need agreement to choose which of the available choices to give their finite dollars to.
  2. Still on the phone, use Buying Facilitation® to help your Communication Partner figure out how to help his/her team prioritize areas such as management, industry fit, partnership issues, and communication. If you have a great solution but don’t meet other criteria you may not get funded. Or you might. It’s a roll of the dice. And again, asking about these rather than facilitating the Other’s answers will get you biased answers from the person you’re speaking with which may not represent the entire group.
  3. Work toward getting the full Stakeholder group to your presentation if possible, or your data will be ‘lost in translation’ when they discuss it later with the absent associates.
  4. Face-to-face visit: Pitch/present in accordance with what was discovered prior to the meeting. Marketing materials must be developed to cover any possibilities and used appropriately. So if the group deems Communication a #1 criteria, you’ll have a slide on Communication ready to go.
  5. Collaboratively discuss how your situation matches the investor’s criteria; where it’s lacking see if you can figure out, together, how to mitigate the fallout.

NOTE: if you’re in a group pitch situation, do #1-3 as your opening gambit. It still must be done before you proceed with your pitch.

Ultimately, there is one important question to ask yourself: Do you want to pitch your solution? Or help investors give you money? Two different activities. And you need both.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.